340 TIIK ENTOMOLOGIST. 



remains a whole year without feeding, and probably without 

 moving. It does not change at once to a chrysalis, as is so 

 generally the case with caterpillars after they have spun their 

 cocoon, but still remains a caterpillar, rather contracted, 

 rather shrivelled, but still a caterpillar; and if exhumed 

 from this self-provided tomb and exposed, it will often 

 exhibit the caterpillar faculty of crawling with considerable 

 energy. I am by no means certain that it always exists for 

 a year in this seuii-aniniate imi)risoned condition; but from 

 my notes it seems that 1 have thus found it in August, 

 October, November, February, March, April and May ; and 

 the late Mr. Standish told me that he kept some specimens 

 between three and four years, and that during all that time 

 they pertinaciously refused to assume the pupa state, with 

 which unnatural conduct he was eventually so disgusted that 

 he threw them away to manage matters for themselves. 

 Nevertheless, towards the end of May, or sometimes earlier, 

 it generally discards the caterpillar form and becomes a 

 chrysalis, which is possessed of very peculiar characters 

 combined with extraordinary locomotive powers. Before 

 this change the caterpillar emits from its mouth some solvent 

 fluid in sufficient quantity to destroy the continuity of the 

 silk, and thus soften that end of the cocoon which is nearest 

 to its head ; and now that it has become a different creature, 

 covered with a coat of mail, it forces its way through this 

 softened part, and escapes, to travel about its galleries at 

 pleasure. The idea of a travelling chrysalis may be new to 

 some of my readers, but such is really the fact. Each seg- 

 ment of the body is furnished with two transverse rows of 

 tooth-like projections, which answer the purpose of feet, and 

 by the assistance of these and a methodical wriggling of the 

 body, it is enabled to traverse its galleries with a facility and 

 celerity that are truly marvellous. It pursues its tortuous 

 journey until it reaches the extreme outside of the bark, 

 where it finds a portion gnawed away and so thinned as to 

 be forced out by mere pressure of its head. It may seem a 

 strange conceit that the chrysalis can use its head as a kind 

 of battering-ram, but it is no more strange than true ; and it 

 is equally strange, but equally true, that it finds a part of the 

 bark sufficiently thin to admit of an opening being thus 

 made. I may remark, in the first place, that the provision 



