OCCASIONAL PAPERS. 



to do to notice them for many weeks. Sometimes 

 nibbling bits from the leaves, at others sitting motion- 

 less for hours with head drawn up and back, and 

 tail curved over the body, and then again perhaps 

 going a day or two without food. This is because 

 one of the important epochs of his life has arrived 

 an important epoch to all juveniles he is to have a 

 new suit of clothes. Caterpillars are like lobsters and 

 crabs in fact they form a subdivision of the same 

 class the growth of their skin does not keep pace 

 with that of their body ; consequently they now and 

 then begin to feel uneasy, they haven't room, and, 

 wiser than juveniles of a higher order, they leave off 

 eating. By and by the old skin cracks down the 

 back, and comes off, while underneath it appears a 

 new one in all the glory of fresh unfaded colour. 

 Probably as a matter of economy, the creature 

 devours its old clo'. This you may perhaps recollect, 

 is done by frogs, toads, and newts, though not always. 

 A change of skin with our Puss Caterpillar occurs, 

 I believe, four times, though other larvae change more 

 frequently, and at every change the markings become 

 more definite, though in this case the colours do not 

 always become brighter. Your attention will pro- 

 bably be drawn, particularly in the early youth of the 

 larva, to two projections on the head like small ears, 

 giving to the creature a marvellous resemblance to a 

 young kitten ; these gradually disappear, being ab- 

 sorbed into the body, but their former position is 

 marked by two black spots. 



When full grown the caterpillar has a flat head, 

 pale brown in colour, black at the sides ; when at 

 rest it is withdrawn into the second segment of the 



