Nature Biographies

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Excerpt from Nature Biographies: The Lives of Some Everyday Butterflies, Moths, Grasshoppers and Flies In this moulting process the skin upon the head splits apart along the middle line of the upper surface, and the break is continued straight backward through several of the body rings. By various more or less violent move ments the caterpillar manages to withdraw its head from the old covering, and then to escape entirely, leaving the cast skin - an exuvium the naturalists call it - at one side. In the case of many species, the caterpillar, after resting awhile for parts of its new covering to harden, calmly eats its exuvium, presumably that the presence of the latter may not be a sign to some bird or other enemy that a caterpillar is in the neighbourhood. The larva is now much larger than it was before. After recovering from the stress of moulting, it again begins to devour the food-plant, feeding more ravenously, and con tinuing to eat, with intervals of rest, for about a week. Then it has so increased in size that another moult is necessary, and this is gone through with in the same way as before. During the next three or four weeks this operation is repeated twice or thrice - making a total of four or five moults during the period from the egg to the full-grown caterpillar. After the last of these larval moults the caterpillar feeds for a week or ten days. Then apparently the prodigious appetite it has shown throughout its life becomes satis fied, for the insect becomes restless and wanders about. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.