waite] COLLECTOR'S EXPERIENCES 217 



a dirty white; I carried some to school and found that they were 

 the first that had ever been brought in. Of similar habits are the 

 katydids. Fig. i. 



An insect very much confused with the grasshopper is the 

 Carolina locust. They have conspicuous brown wings with a yel- 

 low border, and fly instantly on approach; but even when they 

 have lighted they are still hard to get, for their dust-colored backs 

 blend perfectly with the dirt or sticks they may be on. I had 

 found several old locusts hanging on bushes but never knew what 

 the trouble was until I read a book by Prof. Clarence Weed. He 

 says that a parasite eats the tissues of the locust's body until only 

 its skin is left hanging somewhere. 



The life history of the Monarch or Milkweed butterfly has been 

 described by every writer on insects but there are probably still 

 many persons who have never heard it and still fewer have had the 

 pleasure of seeing the complete metamorphosis. Late one summer 

 after I had returned from my vacation I found several larvae of the 

 Monarch feeding on the milkweed leaves in a nearby lot. These I 

 carefully gathered and put in a large fish globe, the top of which 

 was then covered with a card-board pie plate punched full of small 

 holes. It was a crude arrangement but worked splendidly, all but 

 two of my caterpillars becoming adult butterflies. For several 

 days they ate the milkweed leaves I provided and then the larger 

 ones were ready to pupate. Climbing to the top of the globe, or 

 still farther, onto the pie plate, each one spun a tiny mat of silk 

 and entangling his hind legs in this, hung head downward for a 

 day or two. Then with much wriggling and squirming, the old 

 black, yellow and white striped skin was thrown off and a coat of 

 beautiful pale green, dotted with golden spots, took its place. 

 Fig. 2. In the meantime the smaller larvae, having been eating 

 steadily, had grown larger and each of them needed a new skin, as 

 the old one would not stretch. So they stopped their feeding long 

 enough to moult, and then started again as voraciously as ever. 

 Soon all were chrysalids, but while the younger ones were green the 

 orange wings and black veiningof the developing butterflies were 

 showing through the coats of the others and it was not long before 

 the adults emerged. At first their wings were soft, small as a finger 

 nail, and shapeless, and the bodies flabby and thick, but as they 

 slowly forced their wings up and down, pumping blood through 

 their bodies, they grew and hardened and the bodies lengthened. 



