SOS 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
butterfly are all visible ; but in so soft a slate that the 
smallest touch can discompose them. The animal is now 
become helpless and motionless. 
Immediately after being stripped of its caterpillar skin, it 
is of a green colour, especially in those parts which are dis- 
tended by an extraordinary afflux of animal moisture ; but in 
ten or twelve hours after being thtisexposed, its parts harden, 
and the air forms its external covering into a firm crust. 
From the beautiful and resplendent colour, with which it 
is thus sometimes adorned, some authors have called it a 
chrysalis, implying a creature made of gold. 
The butterfly does not continue so long under the form of 
an aurelia, as one would be apt to imagine. In general, 
those caterpillars that provide themselves with cones, con- 
tinue within them but a few days after the cone is com- 
pletely finished. Some, however, remain buried in this arti- 
ficial covering for eight or nine months, without taking the 
smallest sustenance during the whole time; and though in 
the caterpillar state no animals were so voracious, when 
thus transformed, they appear a miracle of abstinence. In 
all, sooner or later, the butterfly bursts from its prison : not 
only that natural prison which is formed by the skin of the 
aurelia, but also from that artificial one of silk, or any other 
substance in which it has enclosed itself. 
If the animal be shut up within a cone, the butterfly al- 
ways gets rid of the natural internal skin of the aurelia, be- 
fore it eats its way through the external covering which its 
own industry has formed round it. In order to observe the 
manner in which it thus gets rid of the aurelia covering, 
we must cut open the cone, and then we shall have an 
opportunity of discovering the insect’s efforts to emancipate 
itself from its natural shell. When this operation begins, 
there seems to be a violent agitation in the humours con- 
tained within the little animal’s body. 
The skin of the head and legs first separates ; then the skin 
at the back flies open, and, dividing into two regular portions, 
disengages the back and wings : then there likewise happens 
another rupture, in that portion which covered the rings of 
the back of the aurelia. After this, the butterfly, as if fa- 
tigued with its struggles, remains very quiet for some time, 
with its wings pointed downwards, and its legs fixed in the 
skin which it has just thrown off'. At first sight, the animal, 
just permitted the use of its wings, seems to want them 
entirely ; they take up such little room, that one would 
wonder where they were hidden. But soon after they expand 
so rapidly, that the eye can scarcely attend their unfolding. 
