PREFACE. 
This volume consists mainly of an adaptation of M. Emile 
Blanchard’s popular work on the metamorphoses of insects for 
English readers. In order to complete the history of the evolution 
of some of the articulate animals which M. Emile Blanchard has 
not fully described I have selected much matter from the well- 
known writings of George Newport, Duges, Charles Darwin, 
Heroldt, Schiodte, Fritz Muller, Packard, Sir John Lubbock, 
Stainton, and Spence Bate ; but at the same time I have 
eliminated large portions of M. Emile Blanchard’s work, which, 
although very interesting, do not refer directly to the phenomena 
of metamorphosis. I have endeavoured to suppress all doubtful 
facts ; and I have introduced here and there some opinions upon 
the nature of metamorphosis and its relation to the evolution of 
the creatures subjected or not to it. It is only just that M. 
Emile Blanchard should be relieved from the authorship of such 
opinions. 
Students of the Articulata will, perhaps, be astonished at the 
amount of work there still remains to be done in the examination 
of the transformations of many important families of the Insecta , 
and I venture to express a hope that carcinologists will give me 
their kind consideration — owing to the great difficulty of the 
subject — when they read the chapter on the metamorphoses of 
the Crustacea , and especially that part which is an analysis of 
Charles Darwin’s wonderful monograph. 
P. MARTIN DUNCAN. 
