is no real or abfolute change produced in the identity 
of the creature itfelf, or that it is in reality only the 
gradual and progreffive evolution of parts before con¬ 
cealed, and which lay mafqucd under the form of an 
infedt of a widely different appearance, yet it is juftly 
viewed with the higheft admiration, and even gene¬ 
rally acknowledged as in the moll lively manner ty¬ 
pical of the laR eventful change. 
If any regard is to be paid to a fimilarity of names, 
it fhould feem that the ancients were fufficiently Rruck 
with the transformations of the butterfly, and its re¬ 
vival from a feeming temporary death, as to have 
confidered it as an emblem of the foul, the Greek 
word \pv%ri signifying both the foul and a butterfly. 
Modern Natural Hiftorians, impreffed with the fame 
idea, and laudably folicitous to apply it as an illuffra- 
tion of the awful myfiery revealed in the facred writ¬ 
ings, have drawn their allufions to it from the dor¬ 
mant condition of the papilionaceous infedts during 
their Rate of chryfalis, and their refufeitation from it: 
but they have unfortunately chofen a fpecics the leaft 
proper for the purpofe, viz. the Silkworm ; a fpccies 
which neither undergoes its change under the furface 
of the earth, nor, when emerged from its tomb, is it 
an infedt of any remarkable beauty; but the larva, or 
caterpillar of the Sphinx, when fatiatc of the food al¬ 
lotted to it during that Rate, retires to a very confi- 
derable depth beneath the furface of the ground, w here 
it diveRs itfelf of all appearance of its former Rate, and 
continues buried for fevcral months, then rifes to the 
furface, and burRs from the confinement of its tomb, 
and 
