LEPIDOPTEEA. 153 



old skin, despairing of ever being able to manage it, abandoned 

 it where it was so solidly fixed. We represent (Fig. 107), rather 

 magnified, the chrysalis arrived at its final state, and suspended to 

 a branch of a tree by a network of silk.* 



We come now to the mode of suspension 

 employed by those caterpillars which, after 

 having fixed themselves by the tail, strengthen 

 the support by means of a small silk cord 

 passed round their body. 



It is again to Reaumur, that indefatigable 

 observer of the habits of insects, that we go 

 for the details of this manner of suspension. 

 According to Reaumur, these caterpillars 

 make and put on this belt in three different Fig- 107 ._Pupa divested of 

 ways. But of these three ways the simplest, the larval skilu 

 and the least liable to meet with accident, is that employed by 

 the larva of the Cabbage Butterfly (Pier is drassicce). When 

 the time for its metamorphosis is only a few days distant, one 

 may observe this caterpillar engaged in stretching threads 

 from different parts of the case in which it is confined. It then 

 chooses a spot, which it covers entirely with threads, some more 

 compact than the others, and disposed in layers, which cross 

 each other in different directions. These threads form a thin 

 white cloth, against which the belly of the caterpillar and 

 that of the chrysalis are later applied. Very soon we see a 

 small hillock of silk rising. The caterpillar hooks itself on 

 to this by the nails of its hinder feet, and sets to work to secure 

 itself. 



To understand this process, it suffices to know that after having 

 lengthened its body to a certain point, this caterpillar can turn 

 back its head on to its back, and reach to the fifth ring, 

 having its three pairs of true legs in the air. But without 

 putting the caterpillar into such an unnatural position, let us take 

 it in a position in which it is simply bent sideways in such a 

 manner that its head, with the thread- spinning apparatus, which 

 is below, can be applied opposite and pretty near to one of the 



* It has been remarked that only those whose continuance in the pupal state is 

 short, undergo their metamorphosis in this apparently inconvenient position. ED. 



