THE CHRYSALIS YEAR. 



greater number eat and grow as grubs or 

 caterpillars through the summer months, 

 and when autumn approaches turn into 

 cocoons or chrysalides, to lie by for the 

 winter in a snug retreat, well wrapped up in 

 a warm silky or woollen coverlet, and pro- 

 tected underground from snow or hoarfrost. 

 As soon as cold weather approaches, these 

 prudent insects retire from public life, cease 

 from active pursuits, melt themselves up 

 into a sort of organic pulp, lose almost every 

 distinguishable organ or feature, and remain 

 dormant, in a state of indefinite protoplasm, 

 which gradually takes shape again as moth, 

 beetle, or butterfly. Mummies we some- 

 times call them, but they are not even 

 mummies, for they lose almost entirely their 

 form and limbs ; they tide over the winter 

 for the most part in an all but structureless 

 mass, which yet encloses the potentiality 

 of rebuilding in due course the shape and 

 members of the ancestral insect. Slowly 

 new limbs grow out within the protecting 

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