THE TRANSFORMATION.
Hanging to the slender branch of yonder rose-tree, swinging to and fro with the gentle air which blows in scented waves through the flower-garden, is a little object to which we wish to direct attention. Had not notice been thus directed to it, in all probability we should have passed it by, if we observed it at all, only considering it to be a broken twig or withered leaf suspended by a cob-web. We may examine it minutely, but all is quiet and motionless in the little mass, and it is impossible to detect the least sign of life. A casual eye would rest upon it without interest, and would turn away from it uninstructed as to its nature and properties. In colour it has nothing to attract—it is of a dirty white or brown, and in shape it is, though curious, so small, and so uninviting, that few would take the trouble to pay much attention to it. Day by day it swings from its silken cord, and is to all appearance an object without interest to all around it.
Yet this slumbering, unattractive mass contains a living being. Though the aspect of death has passed upon it, and though we may perhaps be unable to detect the symptoms of movement in its parts, it is yet alive, and the lapse of a little time will convert the slumbering being, thus singularly hung up to be the sport of the wind and rain, into a creature more extraordinarily active than perhaps any other in the animal creation. While it sleeps, great changes are taking place; it is receiving new organs, it is being matured, developed, perfected, fitted for a nobler existence, and for a higher range of duties, than it has yet known. Such is the pupa.
From these remarks it will be sufficiently evident that this chapter of our insect history has to speak of a period when there are but few traces of active existence in the insect, and it might therefore be supposed there remained little to be said upon a period of the insect's life which is only comparable to a prolonged sleep. But entomological science is too rich in interesting matters upon every subject to admit this conclusion, and we shall find that there is much to be narrated which equally, with what has formerly been written, is calculated to raise our admiration to the Great and Beneficent Author of all Nature.
If we turn to a Latin Dictionary and hunt out the word which stands at the head of this chapter, Pupa, we shall find several definitions of it given; for example, a little girl, a doll, and a baby. What have either of these to do with an insect? some will exclaim, and they may feel disposed to consider the great Linnæus, who gave the insect tribes while in this stage this title, to have been not over happy in his selection of terms. But those who thus exclaim have perhaps only seen babies as they are clothed in England, possessing the power and comfort of free movement, and having their arms and legs at liberty. Between the aspect of these little creatures and our insects no one can trace any resemblance. But it is very different on the continent; there, out of the strange notion that it will keep the poor little being's limbs straight, it is the custom to wrap babies up in swaddling clothes, until they can neither stir hand nor foot, and they are made to resemble Egyptian mummies as nearly as possible. Babies wrapped up in this cruel and barbarous manner form objects of so peculiar an appearance, that it is quite ludicrous to trace the resemblance between them and the pupæ of insects; and therefore Linnæus, as it appears, could scarcely have selected a better epithet for the insect than its present title of pupa, as it too has the aspect of being wrapped up in swaddling bands.
A Pupa.