animals.
This arrangement offers great convenience to the creature, feeding, as it
is wont to do, on the thin edge of a leaf. It is a curious sight to watch a
caterpillar thus engaged. Adhering by his close-clinging prolegs, and
guiding the edge of the leaf between his forelegs, he stretches out his
head as far as he can reach, and commences a series of rapid bites, at each
nibble bringing the head nearer the legs, till they almost meet; then
stretching out again the same regular set of mouthfuls is abstracted, and
so on, repeating the process till a large semi-circular indentation is
formed, reaching perhaps to the midrib of the leaf; then shifting his
position to a new vantage ground, the marauder recommences operations,
another sweep is taken out, then another, and soon the leaf is left a mere
skeleton.

But a change, far more important than mere skin-shifting, follows close
upon the animal's caterpillar-maturity, complete as soon as it ceases to
grow.

The form and habits of a worm are to be exchanged for the glories and
pleasures of winged life; but this can only be done at the price of passing
through an intermediate state; one neither of eating, nor of flying, but
motionless, helpless and death-like. {12}

This is called the CHRYSALIS _or_ PUPA _state_.

_Pupa_ is a Latin word, signifying a creature swathed, or tied up; and is
applied to this stage of all insects, because all, or some, of their parts
are then bound up, as if swathed.

The term _Chrysalis_ is applicable to butterflies only, and, strictly, only
to a few of these--_Chrysalis_[1] being derived from the Greek [Greek:
chrusos] (_chrysos_), _gold_--in allusion to the splendid gilding of the
surface in certain species, such as the _Vanessas_, Fritillaries, and some
others.

In the older works on entomology we frequently meet with the term _Aurelia_
applied to this state, and having the same meaning as chrysalis, but
derived from the Latin word _Aurum_, gold.

Here the reader is again referred to Plate I. for a series of the principal
forms assumed by the chrysalides of our native butterflies, and as these
for the most part represent the next stage of the caterpillars previously
figured, an opportunity is afforded of tracing the insect's form through
its three great changes; the whole of the butterflies in their perfect
state being given in their proper places in the body of the work.

[Illustration: III.]

{13} The complicated and curious proc