36 THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE WEST COAST 



ing of the jar will keep the twig from wilting, and the stillness 

 and quiet are agreeable to the butterfly, and conduce to success. 

 If the butterfly is of the kind which require no plant, the same 

 processes are available, with the added facility of not having to 

 bother about the plant. You can catch the butterfly in the most dis- 

 tant mountains, and bring her home, and putting her in the jar, 

 get the eggs, with but little trouble, after you have become ac- 

 quainted with the little wrinkles of the process, although you may 

 live in the heart of a city. A proper amount of sunshine and 

 shade, of proper warmth, of utter quiet, are obligatory in any 

 case. 



§ 36. Breeding the Larv^. 



Butterfly eggs hatch in from ten to twenty days, according to 

 the species. The caterpillar is at first but a small thing; really, if 

 it is of a very small butterfly it will be nearly invisible to the un- 

 aided eye ; the first thing the larva is likely to do is to eat its own 

 egg-shell, then after a while it wants to nibble at a leaf. All this 

 time it should be in the jar, as previously mentioned, as it is other- 

 wise likely to be lost. Young and tender leaves must be given it 

 every day, and after a week or two the jar must be washed out 

 daily, and so kept clean and sweet, as otherwise the larva will 

 die. 



When the caterpillar has lived its appointed days, and gone 

 through its proper moults, it has arrived at maturity, and becomes 

 sluggish and stupid and ceases to feed ; but shortly it begins to 

 creep about, and if it is not carefully caged it will get away and 

 be lost ; to get away it will gnaw through cloth, and sometimes 

 they will go into the ground, and so become lost to you ; when the 

 wandering stage is over it will attach itself to a twig, and in two 

 days will have become a chrysalis. 



In the pupa or chrysalis state it may remain for ten to twenty 

 days, or longer, perhaps all winter, according to circumstances. 

 And when the proper time has come it will emerge, a bright new 

 butterfly. At first it cannot fly, for its wings are as soft and limp 

 as a bit of wet tissue paper, but after a while the wings become 

 firmer, and soon it can fly, and you have a "bred" butterfly. 



§ 37. Breeding in Darkness and in Cold. 



When caterpillars are bred or raised in darkness from egg to 

 imago, the resulting imago will be darker in color than the nor- 



