THE THISTLE BUTTERFLY. 
291 
folded leaf, and suspend themselves by the hind feet alone 
when about to transform. The chrysalids arc angular on 
the sides, with two or three rows of sharp tubercles on the 
back, the anterior extremity is nearly square, or hardly 
notched, and there is a short and thick prominence on the 
top of the thorax. The tubercles, and oftentimes the greater 
part of the surface of the chrysalis, have the color and lustre 
of burnished gold ; from which originated the name chrysa¬ 
lis, derived from the Greek name for gold, now, however, 
applied to other insects in their second stage of transforma¬ 
tion, which are not golden-colored. 
Cynthia Cardui. Thistle Butterfly. (Fig. 118 .) 
Wings tawny above, with a tinge of rose-red, spotted 
with black and white; hind wings marbled beneath, with a 
Fig. 118. 
triangular white spot in the middle, and a row of five eye¬ 
like spots near the hind margin. 
Expands to 2^ inches or more. 
The caterpillars of this butterfly are found on thistles, 
particularly the spear-thistle ( Cnicus lanceolatus) and cotton- 
thistle (Onojpordon acantliium)^ on the leaves of the sun¬ 
flower, hollyhock, burdock, and other rough-leaved plants, in 
June and July. Though there may be several on the same 
plant, they keep at some distance from each other. Each 
one spins for itself a thin web on the surface of the leaf, 
usually near the edge, to which it is also fastened, so as to 
