28 BUTTERFLY METAMOEPHOSES. 



with fresh food, before one, at least, of the company of feeders 

 desists fqpn eating, and having first woven a suspending loop 

 or button, thereby hangs himself head downwards to- a nettle- 

 stalk.* In this position, he succeeds after infinite trouble, 

 testified by violent twistings, jerks and contortions to rend 

 on the shoulders his spiny skin from whence he emerges a 

 chrysalis, perfect at all points; though he requires most 

 usually a few hours' exposure to air, to endue him with the 

 streaks and specks of mimic gold, which mingle with his 

 variegated hues of black and green. This now legless, 

 mummy-like animal must surely fall, as you would fancy, 

 prone to earth; but* not a bit of it his tail is furnished with 

 a hook his silken loop remains uninjured, and he knows a 

 trick which will make these together available for his support ; 

 in short, he contrives, somehow (partly by help of his cast-off 

 caterpillar coat, still pendent by his side) to hitch and wriggle 

 himself exactly into his former place, and hang, a chrysalis, 

 hooked into the ss*ne suspending button which upheld, in the 

 hour of change and peril, his caterpillar form. That such 

 important epochs in insect life are not unattended with danger 

 we have had ocular demonstration, in watching their arrival. 

 The suspended caterpillar sometimes dies, seemingly for lack 

 of power to cast off his skin and we saw, in one instance, 

 that of a chrysalis just emerging, rent asunder by its violent 

 efforts in the same operation. After two or^ three weeks of 



* Vignette. 



