CATERPILLARS 103 



The writers on this subject disagree, so I will briefly tell 

 you what I think about the matter, without reciting the 

 opinions of others. The males unite with the females, 

 and their fertilized eggs are laid in great numbers ; from 

 these eggs worms hatch, that we call caterpillars, and 

 in Latin " erucae." These caterpillars feed on the leaves 

 of trees and plants up to a certain time. In the mean- 

 time they frequently become torpid and cast their skins. 

 But when they have finished growing, some of them 

 weave a silk cocoon about their bodies, others do not 

 make a cocoon, but shrink up, harden themselves into 

 a chrysalis, and during this process they emit two or 

 three silk filaments, with which they securely attach them- 

 selves to a tree-trunk or stone; others of a different 

 kind, remain unattached and float in the air. Finally 

 the butterflies escape from the cocoons as from a tomb, 

 every kind having its fixed period of maturity: some 

 come out after a few days, others delay for weeks, still 

 others for months ; and the caterpillars of the third kind, 

 after forming a cocoon towards the end of Spring, do 

 not appear as butterflies until the following Spring. A 

 certain kind of fly also proceeds from a chrysalis. 



Do not marvel at all these strange births and trans- 

 formations, for we ourselves, are nothing more than 

 caterpillars and worms; hence the divine poet gracefully 

 said of us : 



" Perceive ye not that ye are merely worms. 

 Born to create the angelic butterfly." 



As I greatly desire to demonstrate to )^ou the truth of 

 the foregoing statements, I have pleasure in relating here 

 a few experiments out of many that I have made with 

 caterpillars and butterflies. 



