are hidden in every grove; what
catacombs of bug mummies yonder log conceals,--mummies whose resurrection
will be brought about by the alchemy of thawing sunbeams. Follow out the
suggestion hinted at above and place a handkerchief full of frozen mould
or decayed wood in a white dish, and the tiny universe which will
gradually unfold before you will provide many hours of interest. But
remember your responsibilities in so doing, and do not let the tiny plant
germs languish and die for want of water, or the feeble, newly-hatched
insects perish from cold or lack a bit of scraped meat.

Cocoons are another never-ending source of delight. If you think that
there are no unsolved problems of the commonest insect life around us, say
why it is that the moths and millers pass the winter wrapped in swaddling
clothes of densest textures, roll upon roll of silken coverlets; while our
delicate butterflies hang uncovered, suspended only by a single loop of
silk, exposed to the cold blast of every northern gale? Why do the
caterpillars of our giant moths--the mythologically named Cecropia,
Polyphemus, Luna, and Prometheus--show such individuality in the position
which they choose for their temporary shrouds? Protection and concealment
are the watchwords held to in each case, but how differently they are
achieved!

Cecropia--that beauty whose wings, fully six inches across, will flap
gracefully through the summer twilight--weaves about himself a half oval
mound, along some stem or tree-trunk, and becomes a mere excrescence--the
veriest unedible thing a bird may spy. Polyphemus wraps miles of finest
silk about his green worm-form (how, even though we watch him do it, we
can only guess); weaving in all the surrounding leaves he can reach. This,
of course, before the frosts come, but when the leaves at last shrivel,
loosen, and their petioles break, it is merely a larger brown nut than
usual that falls to the ground, the kernel of which will sprout next June
and blossom into the big moth of delicate fawn tints, feathery horned,
with those strange isinglass windows in his hind wings.

Luna--the weird, beautiful moon-moth, whose pale green hues and long
graceful streamers make us realise how much beauty we miss if we neglect
the night life of summer--when clad in her temporary shroud of silk,
sometimes falls to the ground, or again the cocoon remains in the tree or
bush where it was spun.

But Prometheus, the smallest of the quartet, has a