INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 



white cocoon of solid silk, formed of a double strand measur- 

 ing several hundred feet in length. Others are bottle-shaped, 

 with an opening at one end. 



On emerging from the pupa state, Butterflies and Moths 

 usually discharge a fluid from their mouths ; and when they 

 have been unusually abundant, the phenomenon has sometimes 

 been imagined by the ignorant to be due to a rain of blood, 

 for this fluid is frequently of a red colour. When a Moth 

 emerges from the pupa, this fluid serves to soften the threads 

 of the cocoon, and some Moths are also furnished with a 

 strong spine under the wings, which they employ to saw 

 through the silk. 



When a Butterfly or Moth emerges from the pupa it is limp 

 and moist, and the wings are small and rudimentary ; but the 

 body of the insect rapidly dries in the air, and as first fluid 

 and then air is forced through the nervures of the wings, they 

 may be seen to expand and assume their full size and colour, 

 when the insect is at last mature, and capable of reproducing 

 its kind. 



We have now to consider the insect in its final development 

 as an 



IMAGO, OR PERFECT INSECT. 



Butterflies and Moths, like bugs and two-winged flies, be- 

 long to the Haustellata^ or insects with a sucking apparatus 

 in the perfect state, in contradistinction to the Mandibulata, 

 or insects provided with jaws, like beetles, bees, grasshoppers, 

 dragonflies, &c. As in all other true insects, their body is 

 divided into three principal parts, called respectively the head, 

 thorax, and abdomen, each of which is connected with the 

 next by a narrow pedicel. 



The Anglo-Saxon word, " Buttor-fleoze," has been supposed 

 to have been suggested by the insects being abundant during 

 the butter-season. It may be so ; but we should be more in- 

 4 c 



