INSECTS. 175 



cation of the color or beauty of the perfect insect as 

 a plain looking caterpiller will often produce a very 

 elegantly marked butterfly, and vice versa. 



Caterpillars sometimes attach themselves by a 

 silken thread to the leaves of the trees, on which 

 they are feeding, and when disturbed will fall off, 

 suspending themselves in the air by this thread, in 

 the same manner as a spider is observed to do. They 

 have the power of reascending to their feeding place 

 by this thread, or of producing it till they reach the 

 ground. But sometimes they will remain suspended 

 till a favorable breath of air comes to waft them to 

 the nearest foliage. 



The caterpillar of the large cabbage butterfly 

 scales walls, and even glass windows, without diffi- 

 culty ; but in the last instance, if the square upon 

 which the animal is crawling be examined with a 

 microscope, a visible track like that of a snail may 

 be seen. This is composed of little silken threads 

 which it has spun, and fixed on the glass in a zig- 

 zag direction, forming a rope ladder, by which it 

 ascends a surface which it could not otherwise 

 adhere to. These threads being of a gummy nature 

 harden in the air, and are easily attached to the 

 glass. 



The voracity of caterpillars may be but compre- 

 hended by supposing a man capable of eating a 

 hundred pounds of roast beef, and a hundred and 

 fifty pounds of bread per diem. 



Chrysalides, as to their general figure, may be di- 

 vided into two classes ; the first consists of angular 

 chrysalides or those which have several angular pro- 

 jections on different parts of the body. The second 

 is conical in shape, having but one angular projec- 

 tion ; which forms the tail. Each of these classes 

 presents different varieties. The surface of the 

 horny skin of most chrysalides is smooth, but in 

 some it is rough and warty. In the chrysalis are 

 discoverable evident traces of ten dorsal segments, 

 and a pretty accurate judgment of the perfect insect 



