If in the winter you find a pupa tied to a weed, and bring it into a hot-house, or a warm room, in a few days you will have a fine butterfly out. A wise man, who studied butterflies, put some pupæ in a very cold place, and they did not change for two or three years! When it is time for the insect to come out of the pupa case, some motions like deep breathing are made. These crack open the hard skin. Then the insect pulls itself out. It is moist and weak. Its wings droop a little. The new butterfly breathes hard, many times. At each breath air rushes through its body, and through the tubes of its wings. The frame of its wings stiffens and fills out. The body and legs grow dry and firm.[21] Then the new-made butterfly rests a little,--perhaps for several hours. After that it seems to feel fine. It can move its wide wings! It can fly! It sails away! Now it lights on a great white head of wild carrot, or on a rose. Let us look at it. Its wings are black and yellow. The black is in bands and streaks. It has six bluish spots on each lower wing, and one large red and blue spot. Its body is like black velvet. Each lower wing has a long, beautiful, curved tail. The butterfly is an insect with far more beauty than sense. We may say it is an insect with very little brains. It has none of the wise ways of the ant, wasp, bee or spider; it only flies and eats, and lays eggs. It builds no house, stores no food, takes no care of its young. The butterfly can see. It has wonderful eyes. It can hear. It can smell. It can taste. Its flower partners spread out for it their finest colors, perfumes, and honey drops. FOOTNOTES: [21] See Nature Reader, No. 2, Lesson 45. LESSON XXIV. LIFE AMONG SNOW AND ROSES. I told you that the butterfly did no work, built no house, and showed very little sense. That is true of the full-grown butterfly. He seems so pleased with his wings that he does nothing but enjoy them. But you must know that the caterpillar is only one state of the butterfly, and there are caterpillars which build for themselves very curious houses. [Illustration: A FROSTY MORNING.] There are caterpillars which leave the egg in the autumn. They live as caterpillars all winter, and enter the pupa state in the spring. Let us watch them, as they live with the snow-flakes flying about them. Then we will watch them to the time of roses. Many butterflies lay their eggs singly. They put one egg alone, on the tip of a willow, hazel, poplar, or oak leaf. Other butterflies put their eggs in small clusters on the underside of carrot, nettle, or blackberry leaves. Some put eggs in a ring, around an elm or birch twig. Now and then you find the eggs in a chain or pyramid, hanging upon a leaf. There are, also, some butterflies which drop their eggs on the ground among the grasses, or on the lower parts of grass blades.