INSECTS IN TIIEIR PERFECT STATE. 125 



mologists of the last century, detected, in the form of 

 a chrysalis which he had never seen before, certain 

 characters which induced him. to believe that it 

 must be that of the Purple Emperor Butterfly, 

 though he had no idea either of the colour or form 

 of the pupa of that insect. But he knew that in 

 the perfect state its under wings extend in an un- 

 usual manner beyond the upper ones, and in the 

 pterotheca, or wing case portion of the chrysalis, he 

 perceived a line, beyond the usual termination of 

 this feature, which at once induced him to declare 

 the chrysalis which he had reared to be that of 

 the Purple Emperor, Apatura Iris ; and he soon 

 afterwards began to perceive the well-known white 

 bands of the wings showing through the semi-trans- 

 parent shell. The old Lepidopterist expresses his 

 enthusiasm so genuinely on the occasion, that the 

 main features of the passage in which he relates 

 how he became possessed of the Caterpillars, and 

 how unceasingly he watched all their changes, are 

 well worth transcribing. The larvas were given to 

 him, it appears, by Mr. Drury, the well-known 

 English naturalist ; that " ingenious Aurelian," as 

 he is termed by his friend Harris, having, while 

 searching for caterpillars on the 26th of May, in 

 the year 1758, beaten them from off the Sallow, 



