NIGGER. 103 



fleshy, without any horny substance, and quite without 

 sharp points. These legs are used when the grub is 

 crawling ; but while he is eating, and the tail, indeed the 

 greater part of the body, is, as I have already said, cocked 

 up in the air, they are quite unemployed. Sometimes, and 

 especially when offended or in danger, the nigger-grub 

 coils himself up in a ring, holding the leaf very slightly by 

 the first pair of legs, that pair next the head, and when 

 touched in this state falls directly to the ground, and there 

 lies as though dead ; indeed, if not in a ring before, he al- 

 most always rolls himself into one when touched. When 

 the nigger has reached his full size, a period depending 

 on the temperature of the weather and the supply of food, 

 but averaging at twenty days, he burrows in the earth, 

 and there makes a little oval house, just big enough for 

 his body, which has all at once become shorter and 

 thicker : he then plasters the walls of this place with a 

 sort of sticky varnish or glue, which he discharges at this 

 time only : he keeps on discharging and spreading this 

 glue till he is quite surrounded with a strong, tough, and 

 hard cocoon, the particles of earth being mixed with the 

 glue, and the whole forming an admirable and perfect de- 

 fence against wet or the attacks of insects. The period of 

 his stay in this cocoon varies according to circumstances ; 

 if the weather is hot, it sometimes happens that the grub 

 becomes a mummy-like chrysalis in ten days, and a per- 

 fect fly and again on the wing in five more; but the 

 greater part of the brood remain unchanged all through 

 the autumn, winter and spring. I have turned up the co- 

 coons, and found the grub little altered even in May. 

 Soon after this the change to a chrysalis must take place, 

 and the change to a fly occurs, in average seasons, about 



