Caterpillar breeding box, made of wood and wire-netting, with four panels painted by Dax, Elléouët, Estienne, and Toyen.

Wire-netting bought at the Deyrolle store on rue du Bac.

"Don't you find it outrageous that man should care so little about the butterfly? Shouldn't the description of a plant accompany that of the caterpillar or the larva that more or less chooses to live on it? Isn’t the plant’s connection with such animals as significant as its connection with an inflorescent plant, for example? But the mania to classify tends to overshadow all real paths to knowledge. I fear that natural philosophy hasn’t advanced since Hegel…" André Breton, August 1941, View, New York. (Entretiens, Gallimard, 1952, p. 227)