304 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Discharge of drops like a shower of blood. 



tremily of their upper parts is a white stripe. 

 The lower wings are also red, marked with a 

 ]arge black patch at the base. The margins of 

 all of them are black, with blue spots. 



These butterflies a/e produced from their chry- 

 salids, and first make their appearance in a 

 winged state about the month of April. Soon 

 after their enlargement from the chrysalis state, 

 they discharge a few drops of reddish fluid, 

 which, in places where they have been in great 

 numbers, has had the appearance of a shower of 

 blood, and been recorded by writers as the fore- 

 runner of some extraordinary event. The first 

 discovery of this circumstance was in the town 

 of Aix, in July 1708, and is related by M. de 

 Reaumur. These butterflies are short-lived, lay- 

 ing their eggs in the beginning of the following 

 month, in great numbers, on the uppermost stalks 

 of the nettles, and dying very shortly afterwards. 

 The eggs adhere by means of the glutinous mois- 

 ture with which they are covered when first pro- 

 truded. About the middle of the month, the 

 young caterpillars may be seen of a light green 

 colour on the nettle tops, enclosed in a web that 

 covers the whole upper part of the plant; and 

 in this they all herd together. They soon cast 

 their first skin, when they always remove to a 

 fresh place, leaving thtMr old coverings hanging 

 to the web. Here, at a little distance from their 

 former habitation, they form a new colony. In 

 their third skin they make another remove, bu* 



