CATFISH
350
CATHERINE OP ARAGON
Some, like the tomato worm, burrow into the earth, and there form a dark brown case,
CATERPILLAR
provided with a long, slender, curved handle; the resemblance of the whole structure to a brown jug gives this form the not inappropriate name of the jug-handle. Inclosed within the handle is the sucking tube of the mouth. The chrysalids formed upon bushes are often ornamented with bright golden metallic spots. The cocoons of the silkworm are the ordinary cases of the chrysalids of that moth. What takes place within the cocoon is not thoroughly understood, but the living part of the body is all worked over. Disks appear upon the caterpillar, from which grow the wings, legs and other parts of the perfect insect. The period of residence within the cocoon is not one of sleep and no change, but a period of reconstruction and great changes. Shut up within the cocoon the new organs of the perfect insect are constructed out of the old ones of the larva. It is one of those marvelous changes which take place continually in the world of life. It is a development parallel to the development within the egg, but of a different character.
Caterpillars are preyed on by birds and other animals, but these apparently defenseless creatures have means of protecting themselves from their natural enemies. Sometimes they are covered with stiff hairs or sharp points, making them disagreeable to swallow. Some, by reason of secretions, have an unpleasant taste or odor, and birds soon learn to leave them alone. Sometimes the harmless forms assume the colors of the harmful kinds, mimic their movements and thereby save their own lives. The bright colors of the poisonous or unpleasant ones are called warning colors. Others still are protected by resembling in color and markings the objects on which they live and so escaping notice. Caterpillars often are very destructive. The woolen moth has a small, worm-like larva, that feeds on woolen fabrics, furs, etc. The yearly injury to crops is enormous. The sole business of the larvae is to eat and grow, and they may eat many thousand times their weight before going into the chrysalis state. The destruction caused by the army-worm is very great. The loss from the cotton-worm in one year was above thirty million dollars, as estimated by authorities of the United States government.
Catfish, a common food-fish, with large head and slender barbels about the mouth. The latter, from a fancied resemblance to the whiskers of the cat, give the name. The common catfish of the United States is abundant in sluggish waters and is called bull-
head and horned pout. It is a homely fish, of dark color, and has no scales. It has sharp spines near the front fins and one on the back, that make painful wounds. Some varieties grow to large size; the black-cat of the great lakes exceeds a hundred pounds in weight, and the ponderous cat of the Mississippi reaches a weight of two hundred pounds. There also are catfish in salt water.
Cathay (kd-thd'), the name applied to China by the western nations of Europe in the middle ages, is a term now seldom employed except in poetry and rhetoric. 4t Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay writes Tennyson in Locksley Hall. See CHINESE EMPIRE.
Catherine de Medici (ddmdfd$-ch$), wife of one king of France and mother of three, was born at Florence, in 1519, of a famous Florentine family. When fourteen, she was married, as the niece of Pope Clement VII, to Henry, the second son of Francis I of France. Her influence was not felt until her eldest son, Francis II, became king in 1559. The great Catholic family of the Guises, on the one hand, and the Huguenots, on the other, were both becoming so powerful as to overawe the crown. The able Catherine, having the reins of government in her own hands, partially, under Francis II, and wholly, under the weak-minded Charles IX, played off these great parties against each other. It was one of these intrigues which caused the fearful massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. The elevation of her third son to the throne of Poland and the death of her fourth son were brought about by her intrigues. Under Henry III she was almost as powerful as she had been before. But in a tew years she and her son, having betrayed those who trusted them, found themselves abandoned by all. The great Catholic League, with the Guises at its head, and the Protestants, headed by Henry of Navarre, equally distrusted them. Catherine died unheeded and unmourned in 1589.
Catherine of Aragon (ar'd-gon), queen of England and first of the six wives of Henry VIII, was born in 1485 and died in 1536. She was the fourth daughter of Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and of Isabella of Castile. While scarcely sixteen she was married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII, but by his decease a year latet-Catherine was left a widow. In 1509, o^ Henry VIII coming to the throne, she became his wife, having some years before received the papal dispensation. With Henry she lived happily for about twenty years, but the want of male issue, together with the king's passion for Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine's maids of honor, led to a dissolution of the marriage, which Cranmer declared a nullity, though the pope refused to sanction the divorce and thereby hastened the rupture between the English Church and the Church of Rome. The grief-stricken queen
