INSECT SIPPERS AND CNA WERS. 233 
CHAPTER XL 
INSECT SIPPERS AND GNAWERS WHICH REMODEL 
THEIR BODIES WITHIN THEIR COATS. 
And many an antenatal tomb, 
Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 
She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
MONG all the strange and 
puzzling facts in the history 
of living things there is per- 
haps none which has at- 
tracted so much attention as the 
complete metamorphosis or change 
in the bodies of insects, by means 
of which a creature begins its life 
in one form, then hangs itself up 
in a hard skin or a silken shroud, 
or buries itself out of sight, and 
comes out at last so totally differ- 
ent in appearance, that if we had 
not watched it passing from the one 
shape to the other we could never 
have believed it to be the same creature. 
Who would believe at first sight that a butterfly 
or moth had once been a creeping caterpillar ; or 
that the hurrying busy beetle and the active fly had 
