INSECT TRANSFORMATION. 



33 



fly in time to save the chrysalis \ which is now, after a lapse of nearly six weeks — 

 and which will remain — perfect in form, and although grown darker, still showing 

 a hint of its former gold. It is far more of a prize than the perfect butterfly would 

 have been. The little brown chrysalids have opened to disclose a fly very sim- 

 ilar to the house-flv but some smaller. 



Fig. II. Fig. 14. 



The Asterias caterpillar [Fig, 11, Insect Lives,] is often intercepted by the in. 



truding ichneumon fly, [Fig. 14,] which steals from the yellowish-green pupa after 



having eaten what should have been the velvet-winged butterfly. And again I 



have watched the change of the spring caterpillar of the " Camberwell beauty," 



Fig. 17. 



Fig. 20. 

 [Fig. 17,] to see its queer-shaped chrysalis opened by a bevy of several dozen 

 tiny glittering winged ichneumons. A curious instance of imperfect transforma- 

 tion occurred this spring in the opening of a Polyphemus cocoon [fig. 20]. I 

 had watched and fed the caterpillar (taken from the wood), along with two others 

 which I had raised from the egg, (laid Sept., 1879,) and which two came out into 

 large and perfect moths in March, 1880 — and had seen it spin its cocoon. 

 I was only repaid for the disappointment of its imperfect development by the 

 curiosity it has afforded me for my collection. Eagerly I watched the opening 

 of its cocoon; (being fortunate enough to see it at the first). When two feet and 

 the head were free, it walked rapidly up the side of the box, carrying its cocoon 

 with it. Having learned by experience, the danger and utter uselessness of aid- 

 ing the exit of a moth, I watched this struggle with its adhering cocoon for hours, 

 and at length, at intervals, for days; and all its life was lived in the cocoon, 

 v— 3 



