134 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:4— April, 1914 



very difficiilt to provide tender milkweed at that time of year it 

 was done and by October 17th all were butterflies, five males and 

 one female. A very slender framework was covered with mosquito 

 netting (not wire). In this structure it was impossible for them 

 to injure their wings and it was large enough for them to fly about; 

 occasionally they were turned loose in a large room for several 

 hours but the muslin curtains were first pinned closely to the win- 

 dows and the radiator covered so that they could not injure their 

 wings; they were fed on sweetened water or California grapes but 

 netting was always stretched one-half inch above their food to 

 protect their wings; they seemed as vigorous as though living out of 

 doors in simimer weather and interested many people until the 

 middle of January when there was an unexpected drop of many 

 degrees in the temperature; the next morning I saw that they 

 had been chilled and within a week's time they all died, the one 

 female outliving the five males. 



One cold October day I found upon a milkweed plant a cater- 

 pillar which resembled a two-thirds grown monarch except that 

 where the monarch is white this one was a dull purple; I showed 

 it to two entomologists, neither of whom had ever seen one like 

 it and by one the belief was expressed that it was a species new 

 to the North. It was kept in a warm room and supplied with 

 milkweed which was far fi-om tender so late in the season; in 

 four days it only ate two or three small bites and those on the first 

 day. If I had kept it in the cold would it have hibernated and 

 proved my theory? Perhaps so, but it would have been a much 

 undersized butterfly; on the fourth day I saw it was preparing 

 to change to a chrysalis; it was forty-eight hours in making the 

 change, twice as long as it should have been and the chrysalis 

 seemed very little more than half the usual size; I never expected 

 it to live to become a butterfly but on the nineteenth day, after 

 almost twice the usual time spent as a chrysalis, it emerged a 

 perfect monarch but an extremely small one ; it died in a few days 

 without sipping sweets which were offered and it is now in the 

 museum of our Minneapolis Public Library. 



I have brought hundreds of monarchs through from the egg or 

 very small caterpillar either at home for my own amusement 

 or with my classes, both of children and teachers. I believe that 

 a person knows very little about insects until he has found their 

 eggs, fed them after they hatch and observed their different 



