

LEPIDOPTERA. 169 
thick; as they grow, little by little they spread themselves out 
and become curled up. When they are completely developed and 
flattened, the wings become firm and hard imperceptibly, and this 
firmness extends at the same time to the whole of the body. 
Figs. 131 and 132, borrowed, like the preceding, from the 14th 
memoir of Réaumur (sur la transformation des chysalides en 



Fig. 181.—Moth whose wings are developing. Fig. 182.—Moth whose wings are developed. 
papillons), show the states through which the wings of the s 
moth pass, before they are thoroughly developed. 
Those pupz enclosed in cocoons free themselves entirely or 
in part from their old skin, in the shell itself; but the imago 
is still a prisoner. It has broken through a first enclosure ; it 
must open itself a way through the second. How does it manage 
to bore through the often very solid walls of this second prison, 
so as to regain its liberty? Réaumur stated that in the Lackey 
moth (Bombyx neustria) the head is the only instrument of which 
the insect makes use in opening a passage, the compound 
eyes then acting like files. These files cut the very fine threads 
of which the cocoon is composed, and as soon as the end of the 
cocoon is pierced through, the insect uses its thorax like a wedge, 
to enlarge the hole. It very soon manages to get its two front 
legs out, fixes itself by them onto the outside, and little by little 
emerges from its prison. 
ame 
THe Prrrecr Insecr. 
Who does not admire the extraordinary splendour, the vivacity, 
the prodigious variety of colours of these brilliant inhabitants of 

