Because, also, in the transformation of their bodies, differing materially from the laws of existence that pertain to other creatures, the Creator affords another illustration of his Omnipotence.
Because, also, during the stage that the insect sleeps in the chrysalis, the flowers and their sweet juices, upon, which the fly is to feed, are being prepared for it, just as, when it was sleeping in the egg, the green food was being prepared for the caterpillar. When, therefore, the beautiful fly spreads its silken wings, it finds a second time that, while it has slept, its meal has been prepared, and it now flies away joyously to feed upon the milk and honey of beautiful flowers which, at the time it passed into the chrysalis, had not yet unfolded their petals.
"For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation."—Isaiah li.
Fig. 79.—THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY.
Paley observes, that "the metamorphosis of insects from grubs into moths and flies, is an astonishing process. A hairy caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly. Observe the change. We have four beautiful wings where there were none before; a tubular proboscis, in the place of a mouth with jaws and teeth; six long legs, instead of fourteen feet. In another case, we see a white, smooth, soft worm, turned into a black, hard, crustaceous beetle, with gauze wings. These, as I said, are astonishing processes, and must require, as it should seem, a proportionably artificial apparatus. The hypothesis which appears to me most probable, is that, in the grub, there exists at the same time three animals, one within another, all nourished by the same digestion, and by a communicating circulation; but in different stages of maturity. The latest discoveries made by naturalists, seem to favour this supposition. The insect, already equipped with wings, is descried under the membranes both of the worm and nymph. In some species, the proboscis, the antennæ, the limbs, and wings of the fly, have been observed to be folded up within the body of the caterpillar; and with such nicety as to occupy a small space only under the two first wings. This being so, the outermost animal, which, besides its own proper character, serves as an integument to the other two, being the farthest advanced, dies, as we suppose, and drops off first. The second, the pupa or chrysalis, then offers itself to observation. This also, in its turn, dies; its dead and brittle husk falls to pieces, and makes way for the appearance of the fly or moth. Now, if this be the case, or indeed whatever explication be adopted, we have a prospective contrivance of the most curious kind; we have organisations three deep; yet a vascular system, which supplies nutrition, growth, and life, to all of them together."