Copy 1, Volume 1

Episodes of insect life / By Acheta Domestica, M.E.S. [i.e. L.M. Budgen].

  • Budgen, L. M., Miss.
Date:
1849-1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Episodes of insect life / By Acheta Domestica, M.E.S. [i.e. L.M. Budgen]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of | to node ie i, at ling sect igh hese our, lf mn INSECT TRANSFORMATION. 6] a sort of pleasure derived from the notes or other alluring influence. exercised by singing-birds, these Gnats, by nature the prey of so many, are attracted to approach and hover within reach of their syren enemies. “When the sun shines, let foolish Gnats make sport, But creep in crannies when he hides his beams ;” now this is an allusion in which our Bard of Avon fails to display his usual most accurate observation of natural objects. Though courting the winter gleam, every body can tell that Gnats by no means hide their heads with the summer sun, for they seem to rejoice at his setting as much as at his rising, in his absence as well as in his presence. In short at every hour, as at every season, “ Dansez toujowrs” seems their motto; up and down, in and out and round about, in the morning, noon, and evening of our day, as in the morning, noon, and evening of their own existence. But stay! here we are arrived at the end of our dance, nay, at the end of our dancers’ lives, without having said a word about their beginning. Well, we have nothing for it but to go backwards, jumping over the steps already made, up to the premier pas, our aérial performer’s birth and parentage. Even this, though, will hardly do, since for the sake of the unin- formed, it may be well to preface our memoir by a word or two on the subject of Insect Transformation. Everybody, we conclude, has a general notion concerning the passage of a Butterfly through the successive stages of caterpillar, chrysalis,