Joe, you bring up a good point. Though I have never done this before, from what I have read, after the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, it expands its wings, but then has to sort of hang out for a while as its wings dry out so that it will be able to fly. So it should be ok inside the protective cage for a while, until I can take the cover off to let it out, as I will keep checking on it. I just looked up info on this, and it says they emerge 9-14 days after they form a chrysalis, and the chrysalis becomes transparent on the day it will emerge, so I will be looking for that.

Also, this morning I discovered there is another caterpillar in there, a bit smaller, so that will still be a bit before it does the same thing.