Insect Stuby. 



729 



box only a few inches longer, wider and thicker than himself. After the 

 cocoon is entirely finished the caterpillar sheds its skin for the last time 

 and changes to a pupa. 



The pupa. — Very diiterent indeed does the pupa look from the bril- 

 liant colored, warty caterpillar. It is compact and brown, oval and smooth 

 with ability to move but very little when disturbed. The cases which 

 contain the wings, which are later to be the objects of our admiration, 

 are now folded down, like a tight cape, around the body and the antennae 

 like great feathers are outlined just in front of the wing cases. There 

 is nothing more wonderful in all nature than the changes which are 

 worked within one of these little, brown, pupa cases, for within it proc- 

 esses go on, wdiich change the creature from a crawler among the leaves 

 to a winged inhabitant of the air. A\'hen we see how helpless this pupa 

 is, we can i nderstand bet- 

 ter how much the strong 

 silken cocoon is needed for 

 protection from enemies 

 as well as from inclement 

 weather. 



The moth. — In the 

 spring, usually in ]\Ia\', 

 after the leaves are well 

 out on the trees, the pupa 

 skin is shed in its turn, and 

 out of it comes the wet 

 and wrinkled moth, its 

 wings all crumpled, its 

 furry, soft body very un- 

 tidy; but it is only because 

 of this soft and crumpled 

 state that it is able to push 

 its way out through the 

 narrow door into the outer 

 world. It has on each side of its body just back of the head two li!tle. 

 horny hooks that help it to work its way out. It is certainly a sorry 

 object as it issues, looking as if it had been dipped in water and some 

 one had squeezed it in his hand. But the wet wings soon spread, the 

 bright antennae stretch out. the furry body becomes dry and Huffy, and 

 the large moth appears in all its perfection. Ihit though it is so large, 

 it docs not need to cat : the caterpillar did all the eating that was neces- 

 sary for the whole life of the in>ect ; the mouth of the nioUi is not 

 sufificiently perfected to take food. 



Cocoon of cccropia. 



