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Marvels of Insect Life. 



When the female 



she 



IS 



is egg-laying on hedge-mustard or cuckoo-flower, 

 protected by this assimilation of her wings to the colour of the flower-clusters. 



The eggs are shaped like ninepins, with ribs running from end to end. When 

 freshly laid they are white, but soon become orange, and just before hatching violet. 



They are laid singly 

 upon the footstalk of 

 a fading flower of 

 h e d g e - m u s t a r d or 

 cuckoo-flower. When 

 the eg^ hatches, the 

 seed-vessel — which in 

 all this tribe of plants 

 is pod-like — is begin- 

 ning to lengthen, and 

 the young blue-green 

 caterpillar is exactly 

 like one of these pods. 

 As the seed-pods grow 

 the caterpillars in- 

 crease in size to corre- 

 spond, and they are so 

 similar in appearance 

 that the caterpillars 

 are not found without 

 difficulty. A pale line 

 along each side of the 

 caterpillar corresponds 

 with the junction of 

 the valves of the seed- 

 vessel. It is upon 

 these that the cater- 

 pillar feeds, but the 

 seeds are preferred to 

 the pods ; the cater- 

 pillar knows the exact 

 location of the seeds 

 and eats through the 

 pod just where he can 

 get to a seed, eats it, and then excavates for the next, ll ma\- eat the remains of 

 the seed-vessel lalcr or it may not. A number of other plants of the cruciferous 

 order serve it for lood at times. It may be found in the caterpillar stage during 

 June and July, but about the end of the hitter month it becomes a very long and 

 slender green chrysalis. In this condition it remains until the following May, which 

 must be considered as rather a long period for a butterfly chrysalis, but it has been 

 known to remain at this stage for over twenty months. 



(ioAi -Catkkj'Illaks in Uak-sii-,.\i 



A section through tlic stem of a young oak tree, showing the havoc 

 of the goat-moth, of which two arc perceptible in their burrows. 



