PROTECTIVE COLORING IN CATERPILLARS. 1143 



the body luis on each side of all tlic segments t'onr scries of low, conspicn- 

 ons tnbercles surmounted by slender short bristles supporting a globule of 

 Huid at tip. 



The chrysalids are elongate, slenderly fusiform, with protuberant wing 

 cases and a slender, tapering, pointed, frontal projet'tion as long as the 

 abdomen beyond the wing cases, and sometimes recurved. Their shape is 

 that of two exceedingly slender cones imited at obliquely truncate bases, the 

 axis of the anterior half of the body being set at an angle with that of the 

 posterior half. They are green or gray mottled with brown, and differ from 

 those of Euchloe in the absence of a suprastigmatal carina on the abdomen. 



EXCURSUS XLIV.— PROTECTIVE COLORING IN CATER- 

 PILLARS. 



There might'st thou sing thy sweet Creator's praise, 

 And turn at quiet o'er some holy book, 



Or tune the accent of thy harmless lays 

 Unto the murmur of the gentle brook, 

 Whiles roundabout thy greedy eye doth look. 



Observing wonders in some flower by, 



This bent, that leaf, this worm, that butterfly. 



Peaciiam. — Rura mihi et sitentmm. 



CoNSiDERiNO mimicry in Initterflies, we pointed out that it was not the 

 least among the strange elements of that phenomenon that these extraordi- 

 nary departiu-es from a normal type should be gained purely for protection 

 during the final days of a life, the earlier periods of which were subject to 

 far greater dangers than the later. 



When, however, we come to examine the earlier stages themselves, 

 though we shall find, as far as I am aware, no cases of parastatic mimicry, 

 we do find that protective colors and markings, if not striking, are at least 

 very general ; so general, indeed, that it might be questioned whether there 

 exists a single one of the caterpillars of our butterfiies whose markings do 

 not serve in some special way for its protection. 



Lubbock and Weismann have pointed out that caterpillars of Lepidop- 

 tera generally are green in their earliest stage. This, however, is not 

 universally true. Within the narrow scope of our own butterflies we have 

 many instances in which this is not the case. The caterpillar of Oeneis 

 macouni is even brilliantly striped ; those of nearly all species of Papilioninae 

 are almost black with a white saddle, and there are many others, likeEurymus 

 and Basilarchia, which, though having certainly a green tinge, are never- 

 theless so obscured by other colors as to have a dusky effect which is at most 

 only greenish. But the fact remains that as a very general ride, caterpil- 

 lars of butterflies as well as of moths are wlien hatched nearly of the 

 color of green leaves, and the various modifications which we find in the 

 mature form of our different caterpillars are assumed during growth. 



