The Life of the Caterpillar

Procession, has appeared in the Fortnightly Review; and Chapter XIV., The Cabbage Caterpillar, the last essay but one from the author’s pen, written, I believe, within two or th...

This caterpillar has already had his story told by Réaumur, [1] but it was a story marked by gaps. These were inevitable in the conditions under which the great man worked, for...

November arrives, however, bringing cold weather; the time has come to build the stout winter tabernacle. High up in the pine the tip of a bough is chosen, with suitably close-p...

Drover Dingdong’s Sheep followed the Ram which Panurge had maliciously thrown overboard and leapt nimbly into the sea, one after the other, “for you know,” says Rabelais, “it is...

In January a second moult occurs, leaving the caterpillar less fair to the eye, while at the same time endowing him with some very peculiar organs. When the moment has come to s...

When March comes, the caterpillars reared in domesticity never cease processioning. Many leave the greenhouse, which remains open; they go in search of a suitable spot for the a...

The Pine Processionary has three costumes: that of infancy, a scanty, ragged fleece, a mixture of black and white; that of middle age, the richest of the three, when the segment...

I have not found many species of urticating caterpillars in the small corner of my investigations. I know of two only: the Pine Caterpillar and the Arbutus Caterpillar. The latt...

One step forward has been taken, but only a very little one as yet, in the problem of the stinging caterpillars. The drenching with ether teaches us that hairiness plays a very...

In the springtime, old walls and dusty roads harbour a surprise for whoso has eyes to see. Tiny faggots, for no apparent reason, set themselves in motion and make their way alon...

The hatching of the eggs takes place in the first fortnight of July. The little grubs measure about one twenty-fifth of an inch. Their head and the upper part of the first thora...

It was a memorable evening. I shall call it the Great Peacock evening. Who does not know the magnificent Moth, the largest in Europe, clad in maroon velvet with a necktie of whi...

Yes, I shall find him; indeed I have him already. A little chap of seven, with a wideawake face that doesn’t get washed every day, bare feet and a pair of tattered breeches held...

In physics we hear of nothing nowadays but the Röntgen rays, which penetrate dense bodies and photograph the invisible for us. A fine discovery, but how insignificant in face of...

The cabbage of our modern kitchen-gardens is a semi-artificial plant, the produce of our agricultural ingenuity quite as much as of the niggardly gifts of nature. Spontaneous ve...