The pupa of the dipterous genus Sciara (S. ocellaris O. S.) resembles a tineid pupa, and before transforming emerges for about two-thirds of its length from the cocoon; the pupa-skin remaining firmly attached in this position.[[108]]

Certain hymenopterous pupæ are provided with temporary deciduous conical processes. Thus we have observed in the pupa of Rhopalum pedicellatum two very prominent acute tubercles between the eyes (h, Fig. 592). As the cocoon is very slight, these may be of use either in extracting itself from the silken threads or in pushing its way along before emerging from the tunnel in the stem of plants. (See also p. 611.)

c. The cremaster

Although this structure is in general confined to lepidopterous pupæ, and is not always present even in them, since it is purely adaptive in its nature, yet on account of its singular mode of development from the larval organs, and the accompanying changes in the pupal abdomen, it should be mentioned in this connection. The cremaster is the stout, triangular, flattened, terminal spine of the abdomen, which aids the pupa in working its way out of the earth when the pupa is subterranean, or in the pupa of silk-spinning caterpillars its armature of secondary hooks and curved setæ enables it to retain its hold on the threads of the interior of its cocoon after the pupa has partially emerged from the cocoon, restraining it, as Chapman well says, “at precisely that degree of emergence from the cocoon that is most desirable.” He also informs us that while in the “pupæ incompletæ the cremaster is attached to an extensible cable, which always allows some emergence of the pupa, in the pupæ obtectæ there is no doubt but that in such cases as the Ichthyuræ, Acronyctæ, and many others, it retains the pupal case in the same position within the cocoon that the living pupa occupied; this is also very usually the case in the Geometræ and in the higher tineids (my pyraloids).”

In many of the more generalized moths there is no cremaster (Micropteryx, Gracilaria, Prodoxus, Tantura, Talæporia, Psychidæ, Hepialidæ, Zeuzera, Nola, Harrisina), though in Tischeria and Talæporia (Fig. 590, but not in Solenobia) and Psychidæ, two stout terminal spines perform the office of a cremaster, or there are simply curved setæ on the rounded, unarmed end of the abdomen, as in Solenobia.

In the obtected Lepidoptera, for example in such a group as the Notodontidæ, where the cremaster is present, though variable in shape, it may from disuse, owing to the dense cocoon, be without the spines and hooks in Cerura, or the cremaster itself is entirely wanting in Gluphisia, and only partially developed in Notodonta. In the butterflies whose pupæ are suspended (Suspensi), the cremaster is especially well developed. Reference might here be made to the temporary pupal structures in certain generalized moths, which take the place of a cremaster, such as the transverse terminal row of spines in Tinea, the two stout spines in Tischeria, and the dense rough integument and thickened callosities of the pupal head and end of abdomen of Phassus, which bores in trees with very hard wood; also the numerous stout spines at the end and sides of the abdomen in Ægerians. These various projections and spines, besides acting as anchors and grappling hooks, in some cases serve to resist strains and blows, and have undoubtedly, like the armature in the larvæ and imagines of other insects, arisen in response to intermittent or occasional pressure, stresses, and impacts.

Mode of formation of the cremaster and suspension of the chrysalis in butterflies.—We are indebted to Riley[[109]] for an explanation of the way the cremaster has originated, his observations having been made on species of over a dozen genera of butterflies (Suspensi).

He shows that the cremaster is the homologue of the suranal plate of the larva.[[110]] The preliminary acts of the larva have been observed by various authors since the days of Vallisneri, i.e. the larva hanging by the end of the abdomen, turning up the anterior part of the body in a more or less complete curve, and the skin finally splitting from the head to the front edge of the metathoracic segment, and being worked back in a shrivelled mass toward the point of attachment. The critical feat, adds Riley, which has most puzzled naturalists, is the independent attachment of the chrysalis and the withdrawal from and riddance of the larval skin which such attachment implies. Réaumur explained this in 1734 by the clutching of the larval skin between sutures of the terminal segments of the chrysalis, and this is the case, though the sutures act in a somewhat different way.

Before pupation the larva spins a mass or heap of silk, the shape of which is like an inverted settee or a ship’s knee, and “one of the most interesting acts of the larva, preliminary to suspension, is the bending and working of the anal parts in order to fasten the back of the (suranal) plate to the inside of the back of the settee, while the crotchets of the legs are entangled in the more flattened position or seat.”

In shedding the larval skin, the following parts are also shed, and have some part to play in the act of suspension: i.e. 1st, the tracheal ligaments (Fig. 593, tl), or the shed tracheæ from the last or 9th pair of spiracles; 2d, the rectal ligament (Fig. 593, rl), or shed intestinal canal; 3d, the Osborne or retaining membrane (membrana retinens, Fig. 593, mr), which is the stretched part of the membrane around the rectum and in the anal legs, and which is intimately associated with the rectal ligament.