"This fine _Goliathus_," he would say, "has not long, probably, emerged from a hollow case of oval form, made of particles of earth agglutinated together by a secretion from the mouth of the larva, and concealed under the surface of the ground. Within that sepulchre it has left its cerements,--the shrivelled skin of the pupa, in which it had been wrapped up motionless like a mummy, for several weeks prior to its appearance as a glittering beetle. The construction of the oval cell was the last act of the larva, a thick, massy, heavy-bodied grub, which had fattened for years by feeding on the roots of plants beneath the soil. Four years passed away[69] while yon beetle lay on its side, darkly labouring at this occupation; and before that it was a minute egg for some weeks. The specimen before us cannot be far short of five years old." No such thing: the witness is at fault: the _Goliathus_ is not _an hour_ old. Take notice of the swarm of Gnats, which, like a dim cloud, are uniting in choral dance and song in the beam of the setting sun. Every member of the band that "winds his shrill horn," has had an aquatic before he had an aerial existence. A week was spent, in lobster-shape, with two breathing tubes on the summit of his body, in passing alternately from the bottom to the top of yonder stagnant pool, and then back from the top to the bottom. And a month was occupied in pretty nearly the same employment, but in another mask,--in fish-like form, with the star-tipped breathing-tube projecting from the side of the tail. But for some months earlier still it was a little lenticular egg, which was agglutinated with a number of others into an oval concave boat, that floated to and fro on the surface of the pool.