Royal Physical Society. 37 



chrysalis, we have no such period during which the dissolution 

 and transmutation of the insect may take place. It cannot 

 have its fibres and muscles dissolved into a homogeneous mass 

 while it is actively walking about, as if nothing was the matter 

 with its muscles ; and we must have recourse to some new ma- 

 chinery not yet known in insect life, to account for such a 

 state of things. Such being the case, I expected that Pro- 

 fessor Owen would have taken the view, that the chrysalid 

 state, as well as the larval state, was passed in the egg ; but he 

 does not do so. The nearest approach he makes to it is when 

 he says, " The metamorphoses which the locust undergoes 

 in its progress from the potential germ to the actual winged 

 and procreative imago, are nevertheless as numerous and ex- 

 treme as those of the butterfly. The differences are relative, 

 not essential ; they relate to the place in, and the time during 

 which the metamorphoses occur, and to the powers associated 

 with particular transitory forms of the insect. The legs of the 

 worm-like embryo-locust were once unarticulated buds, like 

 the prolegs of the caterpillar ; but the creature was passive, 

 and development was not superseded for a moment by mere 

 growth ; these organizing processes go on simultaneously ; or 

 rather change of form is more conspicuous than increase of 

 bulk. The six rudimental feet are put to no use, but constitute 

 mere stages in the rapid formation of the normal segments, 

 which attain their mature proportions, and their armature of 

 claws and spines, before the egg is left. The first segment of 

 the original apodal and acephalous larva, is as rapidly and un- 

 interruptedly metamorphosed into the mandibulate and anten- 

 nate head, with large compound eyes."* 



Now, although it is impossible to doubt, that the idea of the 

 larva changing into a chrysalis in the egg, and there complet- 

 ing its transformation, must have crossed the mind of Professor 

 Owen, — -still, whether it be from thinking that his own obser- 

 vations did not justify him in promulgating such an opinion, or 

 from whatever other cause, it appears clear that the above- 

 quoted passage does not announce such a doctrine, and indeed 

 the latter part would seem to contradict it, and to lead to the in- 

 ference, that he considered the six-legged insect which emerges 



* Owen's Comp. Anat., p. 438. 



