258 ANCESTRY AND CLASSIFICATION. 



of the girt ; and, as if this were not enough, some 

 of the highest butterflies (among the satyrs) have 

 even lost the last remnant of silk and fallen to the 

 ground, where, amid stubble or in crevices in the 

 ground, they undergo their transformations with- 

 out more ado. As if, moreover, to show that this 

 suspension of the chrysalis by the tail alone is a 

 stage beyond that of hanging by tail and girth, 

 we have a clear proof that all the Suspensi, as 

 Boisduval happily calls them, have 

 passed through the stage of the Suc- 

 cincti, since the straight ventral sur- 

 face of the abdomen [Fig. 181 ; see 

 also Figs. 54, 57], assumed perforce 

 by the Succincti, when they left the 

 cocoon stage and became attached to 

 PIG. isi.-chrys- hard surfaces, still remains in the 

 chrysalis of the brush-footed butter- 



nat. size. 



flies, where it no longer serves any 

 purpose ; as clear and striking an indication that 

 the Suspensi outrank the Succincti, as that the 

 pupa is higher than the larva. 



What sort of arguments were formerly used by 

 a certain class of speculative philosophers may be 

 judged from the following passage published 

 forty -five years ago : " The chrysalis of the [true] 

 butterfly, the pre-eminent type of annulose ani- 

 mals, is fixed with its head upward, as if it 

 looked to the pure regions of heaven for the en- 



