Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and HousesPackard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Science
Our Common Insects: A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses
Packard, A. S. (Alpheus Spring)
Insects
Indeed the study of insects possesses most of its interest when we
observe their habits and transformations. Caterpillars are always to be
found, and with a little practice are easy to raise; we would therefore
advise any one desirous of beginning the study of insects to take up the
butterflies and moths. They are perhaps easier to study than any other
group of insects, and are more ornamental in the cabinet. As a
scientific study we would recommend it to ladies as next to botany in
interest and in the ease in which specimens may be collected and
examined. The example of Madam Merian, and several ladies in this
country who have greatly aided science by their well filled cabinets,
and critical knowledge of the various species and their transformations,
is an earnest of what may be expected from their followers. Though the
moths are easy to study compared with the bees, flies, beetles and bugs,
and dragon flies, yet many questions of great interest in philosophical
entomology have been answered by our knowledge of their structure and
mode of growth. The great works of Herold on the evolution of a
caterpillar; of Lyonet on the anatomy of the Cossus; of Newport on that
of the Sphinx; and of Siebold on the parthenogenesis of insects, are
proofs that the moths have engaged the attention of some of the master
minds in science.
The study of the transformations of the moths is also of great
importance to one who would acquaint himself with the questions
concerning the growth and metamorphoses and origin of animals. We should
remember that the very words "metamorphosis" and "transformation," now
so generally applied to other groups of animals and used in
philosophical botany, were first suggested by those who observed that
the moth and butterfly attain their maturity only by passing through
wonderful changes of form and modes of life.
The knowledge of the fact that all animals pass through some sort of a
metamorphosis is very recent in physiology. Moreover the fact that these
morphological eras in the life of an individual animal accord most
unerringly with the gradation of forms in the type of which it is a
member, was the discovery of the eminent physiologist Von Baer. Up to
this time the true significance of the luxuriance and diversity of
larval forms had never seriously engaged the attention of systematists
in entomology.
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