INTRODUCTION. XXVil 
a great number are anterior to the time of Apuleius, 
and allude to sacred ceremonies: that the butterfly 
was displayed in these rites as a symbol of the soul ; 
and that the gems which bear the figure of Cupid 
chasing, tormenting, caressing, and sporting with a 
butterfly, are emblematic of desire acting on the 
human soul: but it does not follow that they have 
any allusion to a fiction resembling that of Apuleius. 
They are probably founded on allegories of more 
ancient and more sublime invention. 
These days are gone by; the metamerphoses, 
now thoroughly known, have been stript of their 
tales of marvel. 
The transformations of insects, more correctly 
speaking, consist rather in a series of developments 
than in any absolute metamorphosis ; being only a 
transition of changes in organs which lay concealed 
from human view, the caterpillar being compound in 
its nature, with the germs of the zmago state hidden 
in a succession of cases. The first is the covering of 
the pupa, which is concealed within three or four 
mantles, the one over the other; these will in succes- 
sion enrobe the larva, and, as it enlarges, the parts 
become visible, and are alternately thrown off, until 
the perfect insect emerges from its confinement. 
VOL. I. c 
