THE BUTTERFLY PERFECTED. 19 



caterpillar winces a little at this treatment, but se 

 to attach little importance to it. Meanwhile his enemy 

 repeats her thrusts till some thirty or forty eggs, germs 

 if the destroyers, are safely lodged in his body, and his 

 doom is certain beyond hope. The eggs quickly hatch 

 into grubs, who begin to gnaw away at the unhappy 

 creature's flesh, thus reducing him gradually, but by a 

 profound instinct keeping clear of all the vital organs, 

 as if knowing full well that the creature must keep on 

 feeding and digesting too, or their own supply would 

 speedily fail ; as usurers, while draining a client, keep 

 up his credit with the world as long as they can. 



Weaker grows the caterpillar as the gnawing worms 

 within grow stronger and nearer maturity. Sometimes 

 ne dies a caterpillar, sometimes he has strength left to 

 take the chrysalis shape, but out of this he never comes 

 a butterfly — the consuming grubs now finish vitals and 

 all, turn to pupae in his empty skin, and come out soon, 

 black flies like their parent. 



But, supposing that it has escaped this great danger, 

 we now see the creature in its completest form, as the 



IMAGO, OR PERFECT BUTTERFLY. 



The first term, Imago, is a Latin one, merely sigmfy- 

 uig an image, or distinct unveiled form ; as distin- 

 guished from the previous larva, or masked state, and 

 the pupa, or swathed and enveloped state. The word 

 imago then, in works on entomology, always means the 

 c2 



