Maria Sibylla Merian — Der rupsen begin, voedzel en wonderbaare verandering (1712)

forward, they bring the hindmost feet to the foremost, so that the body stands up in an arch, and thus they speed their walk. The maggots have no feet, therefore they only slide forward with their bodies; I have indeed found these in rotten caterpillars, and also in their or other filth, which seems to be their food, because the flies lay their eggs therein. The maggots change into small brown barrels, from which flies then emerge after ten or twelve days. Some caterpillars also spin like the silkworm, others change into pupae without spinning; these two kinds bring forth moths after fourteen or twenty days, which only fly at night. One also finds them that, when changing into a pupa, attach themselves only with a thread and thus hang with the head downward, resembling a swaddled child, some of which appear as if gilded; some also remain in their pupa for the entire Winter, and in the Spring a butterfly emerges from it, which are very swift in flying during the day. All kinds of caterpillars molt twice or three times before they change; some get another color and appearance after molting, no longer resembling themselves. I have often obtained flies from a caterpillar's pupa; the reason for this I believe to be the following, as I have well observed that when the caterpillar had attached itself, as it wanted to change into a pupa, a fly came upon it and stayed sitting there for many hours, from which pupa, after the passage of fourteen days, more than fifty small flies emerged, whose little wings were wrinkled together, which they arranged somewhat with their feet and flew away: when the moths and