240 A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS 



indeed but effectually, to its presence. To experi- 

 ment upon them he devised an arrangement by 

 which the light — not the direct rays of the sun, 

 but merely its light — could be thrown upon them 

 from one direction or another without touching 

 them, and he found them capable of changing their 

 position, some of them from side to side, some 

 from a ^^endant to a horizontal position, through 

 an angle, varying in the species, of from 45° to 70° 

 or even 90°, in order to present as little surface 

 to the light as possible, to get, as it were, in the 

 shade ; some responded to changes as frequent as 

 a dozen in six hours. The experiments were made 

 with a number of species ; one of them was an 

 Ageronia, which, pendant when in the dark, in the 

 light hugged the horizontal surface from which it 

 hung so as to assume the attitude of a girt Papili- 

 onid, whence arose, Miiller believes, the error of 

 Lacordaire and others, who asserted Ageronia had 

 a girt chrysalis. As not a few of the chrysalids 

 most frequently experimented on died or produced 

 crippled butterflies, Miiller believes that too much 

 light is injurious to them, and reasoned that this 

 movement was therefore one of protection. But 

 he found one very strange exception to the rest in 

 a species of Catonephele, which responded to his 



