XxX PREFACE. 
There can hardly remain a doubt, that all His 
works were designed to afford His rational 
creatures useful and pleasing instruction. ‘The 
wisest of men says, ‘“‘ Go to the ant, thou 
sluggard, and be wise.”* The inspired Jere- 
miah says, in reference to the knowledge of the 
stork and swallow, that they are aware of their 
“ appointed times,” and “ the times of their 
coming.”-+ Our Saviour directs the attention 
of man to the fowls of the air, and the lilies of 
the field, as affording good moral lessons. St 
Paul, in his refutation of the gainsayers in their 
philosophical unbelief, impugns their false doc- 
trines, by an illustration of the possibility of the 
resurrection from the dead, drawn from the ordi- 
nary process of vegetation. { A closer analogy 
will, however, I think, be found in the transfor- 
mation of Insects; as is more fully illustrated 
in our observations on the Ocellated Sphinx. || 
Wherever the student of Nature turns his 
eye, he perceives objects which command his 
* Provenns, vi. 6. + Jeremrany, viii. 7. 
+ Corinturans, xv. 36, &e. || Plate 62. 
