878 



Rural School Leaflet. 



out for yourselves whether the apple tree "worm" will eat maple leaves 

 or whether the forest tent-caterpillar found commonly on maple trees 



will eat leaves taken from an apple tree. 

 One of the inost interesting things to 

 notice in the study of larvae or cater- 

 ])illars is that they occasionally appear 

 in bright new coats, and we find the old 

 ones have been cast aside. It is neces- 

 sity, not pride, that leads them to do 

 this. An insect's skeleton is on the 

 outside of its body; its skeleton or skin 

 becomes too small for it, and if it could 

 not be shed once in a while, there would 



Fig. 14. — Chrys-a-Uds of the moitrn 

 ing-cloak butterfly 



not be room for the little creature to grow. 



The Pupa 



Of all the forms in which the moths and butterflies appear, the pupa 

 is the strangest. Although we speak of this period in the life of the insect 

 as one of rest or sleep, it is the time when the most wonderful changes take 

 place in its body. 



The queer objects that you see illustrated in Fig. 14 are the pupae 

 of the mourning-cloak butterfly. When the caterpillars were about to 

 shed their coats for the last time, they hung themselves head downward 

 from a • twig by 

 msans of a silk but- 

 ton which they had 

 spun. Then they 

 cast off their skins, 

 leaving the chrysa- 

 lids or naked pupae 

 hanging; protected 

 from birds by their 

 spiny form and pro- 

 tected from many 

 enemies, even from 

 young naturalists, 

 by their wood- 

 brown color which 

 so closely resembles 

 the support from 



•^ Fig. 15. — Cocoon of the cecropla tnoth. It is often attached 



suspended. to the twig of a fruit tree 



