SILKWORMS AND CABBAGE BUTTERFLIES II3 



around Florence with great care, but also those of man}^ 

 other Tuscan cities, but I was never able to see any sign 

 of such propagation. 



Aristotle asserts that cabbages produce caterpillars 

 daily, but I have not been able to witness this remarkable 

 reproduction, though I have seen many eggs laid by 

 butterflies on the cabbage-stalks and neighboring grasses ; 

 these eggs developed subsequently into caterpillars and 

 butterflies. 



Whoever has observed trees and plants will have often 

 found similar eggs in the cracks of the bark, and I re- 

 member, that at the beginning of May, I found a great 

 many tiny, yellow eggs on the leaves of the elder tree. 

 I took pleasure in observing what would hatch out of 

 them, and in a few days, I saw an equal number of very 

 minute worms come out of them, which I immediately 

 supplied with elder leaves, that they greedily devoured. 

 They continued to grow and became a yellow color with 

 many reddish spots ; the tail ended in crescent shape, and 

 the head was very small and sharp, and when they 

 moved, they pushed out ridge-like protuberances, that 

 served the purpose of legs. The greater part of these 

 worms ceased from motion and left off eating on the 

 26th of May, without, however changing their shape or 

 color; but on the first of June, six of the said worms 

 shrunk together and rolled themselves into balls, look- 

 ing like eggs humped in the middle and pointed at the 

 ends ; they were of rust color. From one of these balls, 

 on the 1 2th of June, a fly escaped, not much larger than 

 the common fly, with two cartilaginous wings, white and 

 longer than the body; with six yellow legs, and two 

 short horns on the head, that was rust colored. The 

 back was of a lighter color with a large yellow spot. 



