6 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



business of his life eating; often making his first 

 meal oddly enough off the egg-shell, lately his cradle. 

 This singular relish, or digestive pill, swallowed, he 

 addresses himself to the food that is to form the staple 

 fare during the whole of his caterpillar existence viz. 

 the leaves of his food-plant, which at the same time is 

 his home-plant too. 



At this stage his growth is marvellously rapid, and few 

 creatures can equal him in the capacity for doubling his 

 weight not even the starved lodging-house "slavey," 

 when she gets to her new place, with carte blanche 

 allowance and the key of the pantry; for, in the course 

 of twenty-four hours, he will have consumed more than 

 twice his own weight of food : and with such persevering 

 avidity does he ply his pleasant task, that, as it is stated, 

 a caterpillar in the course of one month has increased 

 nearly ten thousand times his original weight on leaving 

 the egg ; and, to furnish this increase of substance, has 

 consumed the prodigious quantity of forty thousand 

 times his weight of food truly, a ruinous rate of living, 

 only that green leaves are so cheap. 



But the life of a caterpillar, after all, is not merely 

 the smooth continual feast he would doubtless prefer it 

 to be ; it is interrupted, several times in its course, by 

 the necessity nature has imposed upon him of now and 

 then changing his coat to him a very troublesome, if 

 not a painful affair. 



For some time previous to this phenomenon, even 

 eating is nearly or quite suspended, the caterpillar 

 becomes sluggish and shy, creeping away into some 

 more secluded spot, and there remaining till his time of 

 trouble is over. Various twitchings and contortions of 

 the body now testify to the mal-aise of the creature in 

 his old coat, which, though formed of a material capable 

 of a moderate amount of stretching, soon becomes out- 

 grown, and most uncomfortably tight-fitting, with such 

 a quick-growing person inside it : so off it must come ; 

 but it being unprovided with buttons, there's the rub. 

 However, with a great deal of fidgeting and shoulder- 



