146 



THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OP 



have been folded up and curled over and between the wrinkles of the 

 body so as not to impede the casting of the skin. At Figure 64, J, I 

 have given a somewhat enlarged view of a worm just in the act of 

 casting its last skin in order to show (at d) how the flexible horns 

 were folded. They unbend of their own accord, though the worm 

 J^s- **1 often helps to straighten 



- them out by cunningly 

 .turning its head and 

 drawing them over the 

 surface of the leaf. 



When full grown the 

 worm presents the ap- 

 pearance of Figure 65, the colors being black, white and yellow. 



HOW THE LARVA BECOMES A CHRYSALIS. 



The metamorphoses of insects will ever prove a source of won- 

 der and admiration. If a naturalist were to announce to the world 

 the discovery of an animal which, for a short term of its life, existed 

 in the form of a serpent; which then, after performing its own inter- 

 ment and weaving itself a shroud of pure silk, changed to something 

 like an Egyptian mummy ; and which after remaining thus buried 

 without food or motion, for a much longer term, should at length 

 struggle through its shroud and start into day a winged bird — every 

 one would be interested in the history of such a marvelous creature! 

 Yet the transformation of insects are scarcely less startling than such 

 an occurrence would be, and it is only by drawing such a picture, 

 that we are made to fully appreciate these changes. The methods of 

 transformation are varied, as the reader who has perused these 

 Reports is well aware. A good illustration is often needed in our 

 schools, and as the present species furnishes an excellent illustration 

 of the process in those butterflies which are suspended in the chrysa- 

 lis state from the tail, and is withal so common that those who desire 

 [Pig. 66.]*- to witness the process will 



have no difficulty in doing 

 so, I will give some ac- 

 count of it ; for the person 

 who had never witnessed 

 the true method employed, 

 might gaze a long time at 

 'the full grown larva (Fig. 

 J ft ^CyllP^ 65,) and the chrysalis (Fig. 



67) without divining how 

 the latter was produced by the former. We have on the one hand 

 a crawling worm, and on the other a legless body hanging securely by 



*These figures are drawn from memory and are perhaps a little ideal and inaccurate. 



