EMBRYO BUTTERFLIES. 



133 



recorded many instances, besides the one under con- 

 sideration, of their strange mistakes in guessing at 

 what they cannot fathom. We prefer following Swam- 

 merdam, Reaumur, and Bonnet, in recording what 

 can be actually seen on examining the structure of 

 caterpillars. 



In a chapter of Swammerdam's Book of Nature, 

 quaintly headed ^ An animal in an animal, or the 

 butterfly hidden in the caterpillar,' we find the fol- 

 lowing details respecting the caterpillar of the large 

 cabbage butterfly {Poniia brassiccB). The egg of 

 this insect is of a yellow colour, flask shaped, and 

 marked with fifteen ribs, converging towards the 

 smaller end, and extending a little beyond it. The 



Egg of the large cabbage butterfly (Pontia brassicae), magnified. 



caterpillar, but too well known from its ravages, has 

 sixteen feet, a yellow line along the back, and another 

 on each side, the rest of the body being bluish gray, 

 spotted with black; and the whole surface sprinkled 

 with thin, short, whitish hairs.* 



^ In order,' continues Swammerdam, ' to discover 

 plainly that a butterfly is inclosed and hidden in the 



* Ray, Cat. Cantab. , quoted by Swammerdam. See fig. a, 

 page 62. 



VOL. VI. 12 



