llar economics, unless,
indeed, she remembered her own infantile habits of lang syne, so totally
different from those of her perfected butterfly life.

The space of time passed in the egg state varies much according to the
temperature--from a few days when laid in genial summer weather, to several
months in the case of those laid in the autumn, and which remain quiescent
during the winter, to hatch out in the spring.

The eggs of butterflies, in common with those of insects in general, are
capable of resisting not only vicissitudes, but extremes of temperature
that would be surely destructive of life in most other forms. The severest
cold of an English winter will not kill the tender butterfly eggs, whose
small internal spark of vitality is enough to keep them from freezing under
a much greater degree of cold than they are ever subjected to in a state of
nature. For example, they have been placed in an artificial freezing
mixture, which brought down the thermometer to 22deg below zero--a deadly
chill--and yet they survived with apparent {7} impunity, and afterwards
lived to hatch duly. Then as to their heat-resisting powers, some tropical
insects habitually lay their eggs in sandy, sun-scorched places, where the
hand cannot endure to remain a few moments; the heat rising daily to
somewhere about 190deg of the thermometer--and we know what a roasting one
gets at 90deg or so. Yet they thrive through all this.

For a short time previous to hatching, the form and colour of the
caterpillar is faintly discoverable through the semi-transparent egg-shell.
The juvenile CATERPILLAR, or LARVA, gnaws his way through the shell into
the world, and makes his appearance in the shape of a slender worm,
exceedingly minute of course, and bearing few of the distinctive marks of
his species, either as to shape or colouring. On finding himself at
liberty, in the midst of plentiful good cheer, he at once falls vigorously
to work at the great business of his life--_eating_; often making his first
meal--oddly enough--off the egg-shell, lately his cradle. This singular
relish, or digestive pill, swallowed, he addresses himself to the food that
is to form the staple fare during the whole of his caterpillar
existence--viz. the leaves of his food-plant, which at the same time is his
home-plant too.

At this stage his growth is marvellously rapid, and few creatures can equal
him in the capacity for doubling his weight--not even the starved
lodgin