THE CATERPILLAR. 5 



them much about caterpillar economics, unless, indeed, 

 she remembered her own infantile habits of lang syne, 

 so totally different from those of her perfected butterfly 

 life. 



The space of time passed in the egg state varies 

 much according to the temperature from a few days 

 when laid in genial summer weather, to several months 

 in the case of those laid in the autumn, and which 

 remain quiescent during the winter, to hatch, out in 

 the spring. 



The eggs of butterflies, in common with those of 

 insects in general, are capable of resisting not only 

 vicissitudes, but extremes of temperature that would 

 be surely destructive of life in most other forms. The 

 severest cold of an English winter will not kill the 

 tender butterfly eggs, whose small internal spark of 

 vitality is enough to keep them from freezing under a 

 much greater degree of cold than they are ever sub- 

 jected to in a state of nature. For example, they have 

 been placed in an artificial freezing mixture, which 

 brought down the thermometer to 22 below zero a 

 deadly chill and yet they survived with apparent 

 impunity, and afterwards lived to hatch, duly. Then as 

 to their heat-resisting powers, some tropical insects 

 habitually lay their eggs in sandy, sun-scorched places, 

 where the hand cannot endure to remain a few mo> 

 meiits ; the heat rising daily to somewhere about 190 

 of the thermometer and we know what a roasting one 

 gets at 90* or so. Yet they thrive through all this. 



For a short time previous to hatching, the form 

 and colour of the caterpillar is faintly discoverable 

 through the semi-transparent egg-shell. The juvenile 

 CATERPILLAR, or LARVA, gnaws his way through the 

 shell into the world, and makes his appearance in 

 the shape of a slender worm, exceedingly minute of 

 course, and bearing few of the distinctive marks of 

 his species, either as to shape or colouring. On find- 

 ing himself at liberty, in the midst of plentiful good 

 cheer, he at once falls vigorously to work at the great 



