Birds and All Nature, Vol. VI, No 4, November 1899

<h2><SPAN name="THE_TRANSFORMATION_OF_THE_VICEROY" id="THE_TRANSFORMATION_OF_THE_VICEROY"></SPAN>THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE VICEROY.<br/> <span class="xx-smaller"><span style="font-weight:lighter;"> (<i>Basilarchia archippus.</i>)</span></span></h2> <p class="ac">REST METCALF.</p> <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_u.jpg" width-obs="48" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> <p class="drop-cap">UGH! The ugly worm! Crush it! Wait a moment, listen, while I tell you a more excellent way. Notice on what your worm is feeding; take a branch of it home and place it in a bottle of water with the worm on it; then place the bottle with its contents in a large box, fastening a wire securely over the box, to prevent the escape; then watch your worm. Perhaps your worm will be the one so often found on the milkweed (<i>asclepias</i>) with black and yellow stripes around his body, two little horns in front on his head and one at the tail. If you keep him well supplied with fresh leaves, in a short time he will eat all he wishes and then, and not until then, will he leave the plant on which he is feeding and travel many a long journey up and down and all around the box, until you may imagine he has gone crazy from his confinement; but that is not the case, as you will soon see. When he finds just the right place, he will remain quite still to all appearances, but really he is very busy with his bobbin of silk and glue bottle weaving a small silken mat and fastening it very securely to the top of the box, and the next thing you will see him hanging by his tail from this mat, with his head recurved. Watch him and you will notice that he makes little jerky motions. For about twenty-four hours he remains in that same position, when suddenly he drops down his head so that he hangs straight down; now don't leave him for a moment, for very soon after taking that position, his black and yellow striped coat begins to split open, right between those two little black horns on the head, as evenly as though cut with a sharp knife and a pale green globular object comes into sight. With a few contortions of the body the little fellow pushes up his old coat, folding each stripe, just as Japanese lanterns fold up, then with a dexterous movement he fastens the end of his beautiful green chrysalis to the mat, dropping his old clothes, so closely compacted together that you would hardly recognize them. Now for two hours he exercises by little shrugs until the beautiful green chrysalis hangs complete, with gold band and pure gold spots, the most beautiful chrysalis I ever saw. Everyone exclaims, "How beautiful!" and wonders how an ugly worm could so transform itself into a thing of beauty.</p> <p>For ten days we can see no change in the looks of this chrysalis; then it grows darker and darker until you can distinguish the veins on the wings of the future butterfly. Then this little fellow, tired of his close quarters, opens the door of his beautiful chrysalis and creeps out, clinging fast to the empty nest. O, what tiny wings! But as you watch they dry out and lengthen to three times their first size and you behold the beautiful large Viceroy&mdash;orange-red wings with black lines along the nervures and a row of white spots along the outer margin, his black body beautifully spotted with white.</p> <p>Or perhaps you may find, on the carrots in your garden, a worm with black and green stripes around his body, the black stripe being decorated with yellow spots. He will spin a long silken mat the length of his body and to that mat fasten a swing to hang around his body, so that by using a little glue at the end of his body the swing will hold his chrysalis in place. This chrysalis is not as beautiful as the Viceroy, but very interesting in its odd shape and in its development and will well repay all the interest taken in it. Perhaps you may be surprised by not seeing a beautiful butterfly emerge from your chrysalis, but instead an Ichneumon fly, for often the Ichneumon fly deposits her egg in the caterpillar's back, and he can not say her nay; after he is nicely settled in his chrysalis this egg hatches and develops rapidly, needing so much food that nothing is left of the poor caterpillar or worm, but the fly prospers and soon comes forth full-grown, from <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</SPAN></span> a round hole which he makes in the side of the chrysalis.</p> <p>Each variety of worm and caterpillar will reward you with a different chrysalis or cocoon. If you are not sure of your worm place a box of dirt in your box, for some worms go into the dirt to make the great change. After watching these changes you, too, will say: "Don't crush the worms! For are they not a symbol of our own death and resurrection when we shall awake in His glorious likeness?"</p> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />