The most surprising circumstance in the history of insects, I have yet to relate. Tue same insect, at different periods of its existence, frequently undergoes several metamorphoses, and assumes forms so various, that it is impossible to be recognised by any person unacquainted with its transformations. You amused yourself, a few summers ago, with keeping silkworms, and may remember, that from a very small, yellow egg, was hatched a small, black worm, which gradually increased to a worm of considerable size, and after casting off its skin three times, became of an elegant, transparent ash-colour, or pale grey: in this state it ceased to eat, and retirg into a corner, began to wrap itself in a covering of fine yellow silk, which proceeded from its mouth. Upon opening this egg-shaped cone of silk what was your surprise, to behold something withinside like a brown bean, instead of the silk-worm; and in about a fortnight your astonishment was redoubled, on perceiving a beautiful white moth burst ford, from the hollow shell of the brown bean. '.This process is a good specimen of the changes of other species.

These transformations are common to all insects, except those of the aptera class, and afford in the different kinds a curious variety

in