63 



BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



those flirtations and love chases so much 

 admired and so glowingly described by our 

 predecessors in the study of entomology. Her 

 flight is slow, flagging, flapping, and only 

 from leaf to leaf. She selects wiih unerring 

 discrimination the leaves of the honeysuckle, 

 even when surrounded, and apparently half 

 smothered, with the foliage of the hazel, arid 

 lays a single EGG on the upper surface of a 

 leaf ; she then flutters off to another, then to 

 another, never tiring, never hesitating which 

 leaf to choose, but always directed by an un- 

 failing instinct to the honeysuckle, and always 

 avoiding those leaves on which an EGG has 

 already been deposited. The egg is something 

 the shape of an orangey only flatter at the 

 poles, and has been compared to those sea- 

 urchins or sea-hedgehogs which are found on 

 the sea-beach, and are to be seen in the win- 

 dow of every shell-shop. In fourteen days 

 the little CATERPILLAR comes out of the egg- 

 shell, and toddles to the very tip of the leaf 

 before it begins eating, and then it nibbles 

 away day after day, eating the green part, and 

 leaving only the midrib sticking out like a 

 bristle, and always after a good meal of leaf 

 it goes to the very point of this bristle, and 

 there rests while its meal digests and while it 

 acquires strength for future attacks on the 

 same leaf. Day after day the alternate pro- 

 cesses of eating the leaf and resting on the 

 tip of the bristle-like midrib continue, until 

 three-quarters or rather more of the leaf has 

 been eaten, and then it knows that its devour- 

 ing duties for the year are over. We all know 

 that the leaves of the honeysuckle are de- 

 ciduous, and, in the course of Nature, would 

 Ml off beiore winter ; this, however, would 

 not suit the requiriugs of the juvenile cater- 

 pillar, which, having once fallen to the ground 

 with the fallen leaf, would inevitably perish. 

 To prevent this falling is absolutely necessary 

 to the existence of the caterpillar, and there- 

 fore to the preservation of the species ; how 

 then is this to be accomplished ] The cater- 

 pillar, by spinning a number of silken threads 

 wound round and round the twig, and round 

 and round the leaf-stalk, faster s the leaf-stalk 

 to the twig to which it is still attached. The 



next process is to make a winter habitation of 

 that portion of leaf that still remains uneaten ; 

 the corners of thisuneaten portion are fastened 

 tightly together, and then the edges are united, 

 these operations being effected by means of 

 silk spun from the mouth ; the work is then 

 finished, and the little caterpillar is thus laid 

 up for winter quarters inside his hammock, 

 the bristle-like midrib of the leaf curling over 

 it like a tail. Now the process of fastening 

 the leaf to the twig by silken cables has done 

 nothing to prevent the natural dehiscence of 

 the leaf-stalk at its base, so that this inevit- 

 able process takes place at the appointed time, 

 and then the little cot, instead of standing 

 erect, falls as far as the cables will permit, 

 always less than half an inch, and rocks to and 

 fro all the winter, lulling the infant caterpillar 

 to sleep, and keeping him asleep for six con- 

 secutive months ; rain, snow, ice,wind, and all 

 the vicissitudes of our winter, have no power 

 to injure or even to awaken him ; hungaloCt 

 in his little cradle he rocks in comfort and 

 security, and ride s out the roughest storm 

 without a thought of harm. In April he 

 wakes up. The same increase of temperature 

 which poets tell us rouses " the torpid sap 

 detruded to the roots " a very apocryphal 

 doctrine, by the way, as the change of tem- 

 perature is more likely to be felt in the air 

 than in the earth : however, the same change 

 of temperature which compels the leaf-buds 

 to burst also resuscitates the little caterpillar ; 

 he wakes up, crawls out of his hammock, 

 and commences operations on the expanding 

 leaves. He now no longer confines himself 

 to the tip of the leaf, but feeds away, with all 

 the voracity which a winter's fast may be 

 supposed to have engendered, during nearly 

 the whole of April and May ; and by the 1st 

 of June is full fed. 



The head is about the same width as the 

 second segment, but decidedly narrower than 

 those which follow ; it is held in a prone 

 position, looking downwards ; the crown is 

 slightly notched, and from each division arises a 

 spine almost erect but slightly bent back wards; 

 the face is flattish and rough, with small warts 

 and short simple spines : the body is almost 



