The Life of the Caterpillar 



the lower branches trailing on the ground, 

 gradually reaches the higher boughs and 

 sometimes the very summit of the pine-tree. 



In a few weeks' time, a first moult replaces 

 the humble fleece of the start, which is pale- 

 coloured, shaggy and ugly, by another which 

 lacks neither richness nor elegance. On the 

 dorsal surface, the various segments, ex- 

 cepting the first three, are adorned with a 

 mosaic of six little bare patches, of a bright 

 red, which stand out a little above the dark 

 background of the skin. Two, the largest, 

 are in front, two behind and one, almost dot- 

 shaped, on either side of the quadrilateral. 

 The whole is surrounded by a palisade of 

 scarlet bristles, divergent and lying almost 

 flat. The other hairs, those of the belly and 

 sides, are longer and whitish. 



In the centre of this crimson marquetry 

 stand two clusters of very short bristles, 

 gathered into flattened tufts which gleam in 

 the sun like specks of gold. The length of 

 the caterpillar is now about two centimetres 1 

 and his width three or four millimetres. 2 

 Such is the costume of middle age, which, like 

 the earlier one, was unknown to Reaumur. 



1 About three-quarters of an inch. Translator's Note. 

 2 .H7 to .156 inch. Translator's Note. 

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