Life, History of the Camherivell Beauty. 347 



legs into it and hang head downward. Soon afterwards 

 the first two or three segments next to the head swell, the 

 skin splits, showing the iiewly forming chrysalis inside. 

 The rent increases, and the chrysalis, acting as a wedcre, 

 succeeds in opening up the skin and pushing it down 

 towards the anal legs. 



By alternate contractions and expansions the head 

 becomes wholly disengaged, and the caterpillar sl^in, now 

 dry and shrivelled, is pressed together into a small bundle, 

 which is its only means of support, and the difficult task 

 which remains for the chrysalis to perform is to extricate 

 itself from this skin and attach its cremaster to the silk 

 above it. In order to accomplish this (which seems to 

 require an effort beyond the power of a creature unpro- 

 vided with arms or legs) the cremaster is pushed through 

 the skin and held by it, while it searches for the button of 

 silk. After several apparently futile attempts it finally 

 jumps up a distance of about one-eiglitli of an inch and 

 hooks its beak into it. All this time the reader will 

 remember that the chrysalis is as soft and weak as a 

 newly hatched bird. A comparison may here be made 

 between a human being, Which in its infancy is the most 

 helpless of all creatures, and insects which perform such 

 wonderful feats in their young state. The once soft 

 chrysalis hardens and assumes the well-known grotesque 

 shape. Perhaps these changes can be more plainly 

 brought before the reader by supposing a fat boy, wearing 

 a pair of sharp-pointed boots (so dear to some of our city 

 exquisites), dressed in a worn-out but tightly-fitting sack, 

 with his feet pushed through the sack into a loop of rope 

 attached to tlie ceiling. He would require to burst the 

 sack, wrigoie it down towards his legs, having his whole 

 weight supported by it, get his feet out of his boots and 

 hook his toes into the same loop of rope. I do not think 

 many athletes would care to go through a like series of 



