Let us continue our examination of the relics of the Burnt Zonitis.
The pseudochrysalis is red, the colour of a cough-lozenge. It remains
intact after opening, except in front, where the adult insect has
emerged. In shape it is a cylindrical bag, with firm, elastic walls.
The segmentation is plainly visible. The magnifying-glass shows the
fine star-shaped dots already observed in the Unarmed Zonitis. The
stigmatic apertures have a projecting, dark-red rim. They are all,
even the last, clearly marked. The signs of the legs are mere studs,
hardly protruding, a little darker than the rest of the skin. The
cephalic mask is reduced to a few mouldings which are not easy to
distinguish.
At the bottom of this pseudochrysalidal sheath I find a little white
wad which, when placed in water, softened and then patiently
unravelled with the tip of a paint-brush, yields a white, powdery
substance, which is uric acid, the usual product of the work of the
nymphosis, and a rumpled membrane, in which I recognize the cast skin
of the nymph. There should still be the tertiary larva, of which I see
not a trace. But, on taking a needle and gradually breaking the
envelope of the pseudochrysalis, after soaking it awhile in water, I
see it dividing into two layers, one an outer layer, brittle, horny in
appearance and currant-red; the other an inner layer, consisting of a
transparent, flexible pellicle. There can be no doubt that this inner
layer represents the tertiary larva, whose skin is left adhering to
the envelope of the pseudochrysalis. It is fairly thick and tough, but
I cannot detach it except in shreds, so closely does it adhere to the
horny, crumbly sheath.
Since I possessed a fair number of pseudochrysalids, I sacrificed a
few in order to ascertain their contents on the approach of the final
transformations. Well, I never found anything that I could detach; I
never succeeded in extracting a larva in its tertiary form, though
this larva is so easily obtained from the amber pouches of the Sitares
and, in the Oil-beetles and Cerocomae, emerges of its own accord from
the split wrapper of the pseudochrysalis. When, for the first time,
the stiff shell encloses a body which does not adhere to the rest,
this body is a nymph and nothing else. The wall surrounding it is a
dull white inside. I attribute this colouring to the cast skin of the
tertiary larva, which was inseparably fixed to the shell of the
pseudochrysalis.
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