THE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 



47 



existence the caterpillars are voracious feeders on the leaves 

 of the milkweed. They grow for two or three weeks, molting 

 several times as they increase in size, till they are conspicuous 

 objects, nearly five centimeters (two inches) long, prominently 

 banded with yellow and black (Fig. 29). When through feed- 

 ing, each larva spins a pad of silk on some convenient support, 

 and, molting once more, appears in a mummy-like pupal con- 

 dition (Fig. 29), attached by hooks at its extremity to the 

 pad of silk spun by the larva. In the pupal stage the milk- 

 weed butterfly is bright green with golden spots. To this, 

 and to some of the other 

 naked pupae of butterflies, 

 the name chrysalis is some- 

 times given. The insect re- 

 mains in the pupal stage 

 for ten or twelve days, 

 when the skin splits and 

 the butterfly comes out 

 with crumpled wings, which 

 soon expand and harden. 



The monarch butterfly 

 possesses remarkable 

 powers of flight. Mr. 

 Scudder, in his Guide to 

 Butterflies, mentions that it has been seen at sea five hun- 

 dred miles from land, and that it has within thirty years 

 spread over nearly all the islands of the Pacific, and even 

 to Australia and Java. He says : " Undoubtedly carried in 

 the first place by trading or other vessels to the Hawaiian 

 Islands, and thence to Micronesia, it has unquestionably/oww 

 from island to island many hundreds of miles apart. It has 

 also appeared at various times in different places on the 

 seacoast of Europe ; here also probably transported acciden- 

 tally by vessels." 



29. .Larva and Pupa of Monarch 

 Butterfly. Natural size 



(From Hunter's Studies in Insect Life) 



