86 
THE CHRYSALIS. 
only half finished spinning it, and made to begin 
over again, in a different place. 
They were again taken off, in the middle of 
the process; and began a third time to spin 
the button. Again they were interrupted; and 
this time their patience seemed to be exhausted. 
They lay down, as if in despair, at the bottom 
of the box, and went through their change with¬ 
out hanging themselves up at all. 
You may easily amuse yourself by watching 
these two ways that caterpillars have of sus¬ 
pending themselves. They are too cunning to 
let you see them out of doors; but if you put a 
number into a box and fed them every day, you 
would be almost certain to surprise them in the 
act. The hairy caterpillar, you had taken from 
the nettle, would hang itself up by its tail; and 
the green and yellow one, you had found on the 
cabbage, would suspend itself by a girth. 
This green and yellow caterpillar, that comes 
in time into the white cabbage butterfly, often 
fixes its girth under the coping of a wall, or some 
such projection. But as if it knew that the 
threads would not hold fast to brick or stone, it 
spins a web over the space, where its girth is to 
hang; making, in fact, a good foundation of silk. 
A naturalist put one of these caterpillars into 
a box, and covered it with a piece, of muslin 
