LETTEK III. 

 METAMORPHOSES OF INSECTS. 



Were a naturalist to announce to the world the discovery 

 of an animal which for the first five years of its life existed 

 in the form of a serpent ; which then penetrating into the 

 earth, and weaving a shroud of pure silk of the finest tex- 

 ture, contracted itself within this covering into a body with- 

 out external mouth or limbs, and resembling, more than any 

 thing else, an Egyptian mummy ; and which, lastly, after 

 remaining in this state without food and without motion for 

 three years longer, should at the end of that period burst its 

 silken cerements, struggle through its earthy covering, and 

 start into day a winged bird, — what think you would be 

 the sensation excited by this strange piece of intelligence? 

 After the first doubts of its truth were dispelled, what as- 

 tonishment would succeed! Amongst the learned, what 

 surmises ! — what investigations ! Amongst the vulgar, what 

 eager curiosity and amazement ! All would be interested in 

 the history of such an unheard-of phenomenon ; even the 

 most torpid would flock to the sight of such a prodigy. 



But, you ask, " To what do all these improbable sup- 

 positions tend ? " Simply to rouse your attention to the 

 metamorphoses of the insect world, almost as strange and sur- 

 prising, to which I am now about to direct your view, — 

 miracles which, though scarcely surpassed in singularity by 

 all that poets have feigned, and though actually wrought 

 every day beneath our eyes, are, because of their commonness, 

 and the minuteness of the objects, unheeded alike by the 

 ignorant and the learned. 



The butterfly which amuses you with his aerial excursions, 

 one while extracting nectar from the tube of the honeysuckle, 

 and then, the very image of fickleness, flying to a rose as if 

 to contrast the hue of its wings with that of the flower on 

 which it reposes, did not come into the world as you now 



