CHRYSALIDS. 19 



"When these are ready to change they will fasten 

 themselves up, by the pair of sucker-feet at the tip of 

 the tail, to web spun on anything convenient. There 

 they hang head downwards ; and after much wriggling 

 and twisting the black skin splits, and is gradually 

 rolled, by the muscular struggles of the chrysalis 

 within it, up to the tail, the bright shiny green of the 

 chrysalis allowing the exact progress of operations to 

 be very clearly seen. In a short time the old skin is 

 completely rolled up to the end of the tail, and the 

 green moist chrysalis hangs as a defenceless body, 

 but yet showing the shape of the legs, and wings, and 

 mouth parts of the coming butterfly, where the black 

 skin of the caterpillar, with its six claw-feet, hung a 

 few minutes before. A kind of gummy secretion 

 which is given out hardens over the surface, and 

 preserves the insect forming within from injury. 



To enable the student to see clearly, and ascertain, 

 for himself, how far development has advanced at this 

 stage, it is a good plan to take one of the chrysalids, 

 before the wet gum or cement on it has hardened, 

 and drop it into anything that will melt the forming 

 cement away (I have used a mixture of warm turpen- 

 tine and Canada balsam in a phial, as this keeps the 

 specimen expanded afterwards). 

 It will then be seen that the 

 partially-formed limbs of the 

 butterfly are all there : the three 

 pairs of legs, the still unexpanded 

 wings, and the trunk or jjro- 

 boscis, which would have sucked 

 honey from many a flower. It 

 is well worth while to watch the ^^^^.f' /rr^'^^'Iv """f 



„ , , pupa 01 Clover Weevil, 



process of change, and prepare a nat. size and magniiied. 

 few specimens as above, for thus 

 we can convince ourselves, and those we may have to 

 speak to on the subject, as to what is the exact course 

 and nature of one kind of transformation. The 

 gummy covering gradually hardens, and within this 



