226 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



is correct. The chrysalis of Grapta is supported by a narrow, white 

 membrane or ligament, about one-tenth inch long, one end of which is 

 pointed and fastened to the inner side of the larval skin near the extremity 

 thereof, and the other is forked and fastened to the ends of two curved, 

 slightly raised, longitudinal ridges, which are to be found on the ventral 

 side of the last segment. These ends are at the anterior edge of the 

 segment. They project sufficiently to form hooks, as it were, which hold 

 the membrane firmly. In archippus the ligament is much larger and 

 stronger than in Grapta. It is broad, black, and deeply forked where it 

 attaches to the segment. In this species, instead of low ridges, there are 

 two rows of shining black processes, three in each row, and the outer pair 

 are knobbed, and a little pointed anteriorly. On these outer knobs the 

 ligament is fastened. I do not believe that the chrysalis of Grapta ever 

 seizes the loosened skin for a support — at any rate any support that such a 

 hold could furnish is not essential, for I have repeatedly raised the skin with 

 forceps entirely off the abdominal segments on the ventral side, so as to 

 discover the distended membrane, and in several cases have cut the skin 

 off just below the membrane at the instant the effort was beginning for 

 freeing the tail. In these last cases the chrysalids were seen to be con- 

 nected with the skin by the membrane only, and the membrane is the lever 

 by which the chrysalis climbs to the silk'. There could not possibly have 

 been any other support. 



Re'aumur's account of the pupation of the Suspensi was drawn up 

 after very extended observations on larvse of several species of Vanessa 

 principally (he says, several hundred caterpillars), and is given at great 

 length. Similar statements are given by subsequent authors, often based 

 on direct observation, but so far as I can discover, one and all describe 

 the process as it would appear to a looker on. 1 notice in Westwood and 

 Humphrey's British Butterflies, p. 54, what is doubtless an inadvertent 

 error : " The chrysalis carefully withdraws its tail from the skin, seizing 

 hold of tlie outside of the latter by pressing two of the rings of its body 

 together, and enclosing between part of the old skin. By repeating this 

 process, it at length pushes its tail upwards, till it reaches the silken 

 button," &c. For outside, read inside. 



Dr. Harris, Ins., 2nd ed., p. 282, gives an account of the transfor- 

 mation of archippus with much detail. 



" By bending together two of these rings near the middle of the body, 

 the chrysalis seizes, in the crevice between them, a portion of the empty 





