THE NEW-BORN PERFECT INSECT.
|
"Oh! start not! on thy closing eyes Another day shall still unfold; A sun of milder radiance rise; A happier age of joys untold. Shall the poor worm that shocks thy sight, The humblest form in nature's train, Thus rise in new-born lustre bright, And yet the emblem teach in vain?" |
Beautiful as these lines are, and poetical as is the idea they develop, they are incorrect. The perfect insect springing from the pupa is not an emblem of man's glorious resurrection from this body of sin and death; why, we shall immediately discuss. In the oftentimes beautiful mythology of Greece, the name for the butterfly was [Greek: Psychê], that the soul. Just as the insect bursts with brilliant wings from the dull and grovelling form of the pupa, flutters in the blaze of day, roams on untiring wings through the genial air, and enjoys the use of faculties so new and strange to it, when contrasted with those of the pupa state,—so was it imagined that the soul's arising from amid the corruption of this vile body would prove a deliverance from the bondage of mortality, and the countless infirmities to which it is heir. And surely there was much poetry in the conception; but we, who must not leave the path of true insect history for any poetical fancies, have now to remind the reader that the simile is in many respects inaccurate, and in so doing we shall merely bring to his recollection what was said as to the contents of the pupa-case at p. 231. From this it appears that the pupa state, far from being a state of death, is one in which new parts are added to the insect; in which the insect is actually not only alive, but in some instances capable of moving about, as well as before or after; and, lastly, in which the various organs of the perfect insect all exist previous to the disclosure of the latter. Thus, if we were to slit open a pupa-case just before the insect bursts from it, we should find that, although kept in bondage by the case, the insect was in all respects the same as if we had allowed it to break out of its prison in the ordinary manner. In a word, the perfect insect is after all only the same being which we saw in the egg, larva, and pupa states, now having cast off its last skin, and become an adult being.
When a man or an animal dies, the particles of the body are separated from each other, their union is destroyed, and they themselves are dissipated in various ways. The flesh returns to dust, the spirit to God who gave it. How different this change from that which the insect undergoes! and how inappropriate in strictness, as
|
"Emblems of our own great resurrection, Emblems of the bright and better land," |
as emblems of the mysterious union of the immortal soul and its immortal, incorruptible body! The fable of the Phœnix was more expressive of the real nature of this great change; for there the body of the creature was reduced to death first, and the new-born being sprang from its ashes. As we are anxious to convey only the most clear and accurate idea to the reader's mind of the various stages of insect life through which we are conducting him, it appeared expedient to notice the mistake taught in these pleasing lines, only to avoid the error of its being supposed that they give us an accurate idea of the true nature of the change from pupa to imago.
The term Imago is a Latin word, and, like those of larva and pupa, was given to insects in this condition by the naturalist Linnæus. It signifies properly an image, copy, or representation of any object. In applying it to insects in their last stage, Linnæus intended that we should understand by it, that the insect had now reached its stage of perfection, and had become in all respects exactly like, that is, the image of, its parent. And though a better term might probably be found, yet as no person is likely to fall into any serious mistake merely because we call an insect in its last state an imago, it is as well to retain it; better indeed, than, by inventing another, to create nothing but confusion and disorder in the minds of young entomologists. In this chapter, therefore,—the last chapter of the Life of an Insect, the word imago may be considered as synonymous, or having the same meaning, with that of "perfect insect;" it is an insect's last stage of existence.