Aberrations of Instinct 



ent; her stomach is incapable of preparing 

 the corrosive calculated to destroy, at any 

 point, the defensive enclosure which is now 

 a prison-wall. Indeed, if I reverse the 

 chrysalis in its cocoon, opened and then 

 closed with a few stitches, the Moth always 

 dies, being powerless to free herself. 

 When the point to be forced is changed, the 

 release becomes impossible. To emerge 

 from this shell, a genuine strong-box, a 

 special method is therefore necessary, one 

 having no relation to the chemical method 

 of the Mulberry Bombyx. Let me de- 

 scribe, as others have done before me, how 

 things happen. 



At the fore-end of the cocoon, a conical 

 end, whereas the other is rounded, the 

 threads are not glued together; every else- 

 where, the silken web is cemented with a 

 gummy product that turns it into a 

 stout, waterproof parchment. Those front 

 threads, which are almost straight, con- 

 verge at their free end and form a cone- 

 shaped series of palisades, having as their 

 common base the circle where the use of the 

 gummy cement is suddenly discontinued. 

 The arrangement can best be compared 

 with the mouth of an Eel-pot, which the fish 

 readily enters by following the funnel of 

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