We must ask attention, before we close our chapter, to one more account of the proceedings of a larva; and this too is in a common insect—perhaps the housewife would say a little too common—the meat-fly. This larva, when its days in that condition are at their close, quits its long greedily-devoured and disgusting food, and penetrates into the earth; there it contracts its body in a singular manner, and its skin becomes thickened and hard, so as to form a sort of parchment-like case, inside which its jaws are cast off, instead of outside, as is commonly the rule. "Were such an extraordinary transformation as this to happen to one of the larger animals, it would be held forth as altogether miraculous," writes Mr. Rennie. "Were a lion or an elephant, for example, to coil itself up into a ball, compressing its skin into twice the thickness and half the extent, while it remained uniform in shape and without joinings or openings: and at the same time were it entirely to separate its whole body from this skin, lie within it, as a kernel does in a nut, or a chick in an egg, throwing off its now useless tusks into a corner; and then, after a space, should it acquire wings, break through its envelope, and take its flight through the air, there would be no bounds to our admiration. Yet the very same circumstances in miniature take place every day during summer, almost under the eye of every individual, in the case of a blow-fly, without attracting the attention of one person in a million." So much more are we attracted by great things than by small.
The work of preparation finished, the insect securely buried in its cell or warmly surrounded by its cocoon, or hanging up to the branch of a tree, or in any other way concealed from view or protected from injury, little more remains to be added to the larva history. Its last action, after settling itself in a comfortable position, is to cast off its skin, which is generally, in the case of those larvæ which inhabit cells or cocoons, left inside the recess: sometimes it is cast out. The period at which the insect ceases to belong to the larva stage, and passes into the next, varies, and will receive notice in the following chapter.
When in the vengeance of God upon the guilty land of Egypt it pleased Him to send the plague of insects, the exclamation of the magicians was: This is the finger of God." Such, in an admiring sense, may be ours also as we look back upon what we perceive God to have done for this humble portion of His creation in the few past pages. What provision, what wonderful forethought and wisdom has not been exercised upon beings which man despises, or even abhors, and which fall daily by thousands under foot, crushed and forgotten except by a few. Let us search the green lanes and hedge-rows more assiduously,—let us poke even into the dirtiest corners,—let us examine well the leaves and branches in our gardens, the depths of the purling brook, the cavities of the aged trunks, and the cracks in the deep-furrowed bark,—let us look narrowly upon the cabbages and nettles, as well as upon the rose-bush and myrtle,—let no place, in a word, be beneath our scrutiny, no object beneath our notice;—let us do this, and we shall not need to sigh after foreign scenes, or the majestic wonders of nature, for we shall have a microcosm, a world of wonders, in a table drawer, and an exhaustless theme of admiration in the contents of a tumbler of water.
INSECTS ESCAPING FROM THE PUPA CONDITION.
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