CHAPTER III. 



THE CHRYSALIS. 



THE change undergone by a butterfly in passing 

 from the caterpillar to the chrysalis state has al- 

 ways excited great interest ; yet, notwithstanding 

 all that has been written on the subject, mostly 

 modelled upon the detailed but not wholly accu- 

 rate account given more than a century ago by 

 Reaumur, the method by which the chrysalis in- 

 closed within the larval skin becomes attached to 

 the silken button into which the hindmost feet 

 of the caterpillar had previously been plunged, 

 has never been rightly explained until within a 

 very few years, when the observations of Osborne 

 in England, and of Edwards, and especially of 

 Riley, in our own country, have solved the prob- 

 lem. The process is the most extraordinary in 

 the higher butterflies, which suspend themselves 

 in pupation by the hinder end only, without first 

 spinning a loop, like other butterfly larvae, for 

 the support of the anterior, heavier part of the 

 body. A caterpillar of this kind preparing for 

 pupation spins a loose mass of silk in some suit- 

 able place, and, firmly attaching itself to it by the 

 hooks of the anal prolegs, casts itself loose from 



