102 MOTHS WINTERING. 



parure of black, white, and scarlet. These are the progeny 

 of a pretty white inoth, yclept the gold-tail, from a tuft of 

 gold-coloured hair at the end of her body. Protected in the 

 above and various other manners, a number of future Moths 

 and Butterflies are now existent in the forms of Egg and Cater- 

 pillar, but many more of them, by far indeed the larger 

 portion, have been sleeping away the winter, and are slumbering 

 yet, as Chrysalides. To " disquiet and bring up " one of these 

 Insect mummies from darkness into light, let us make the 

 next object of our walk. If we had had with us our exhuming 

 digger, we might soon unearth some from beneath the trees 

 about us, but in default of a trowel, we must seek a chrysalis 

 buried indeed, but not within the ground. The light vege- 

 table mould, which fills the trunk of this decayed willow, 

 has often furnished us with an Aurelian treasure, and if one is 

 to be found there now, a stick will suffice for its discovery. 

 This time however, explore it as we may, our mine would 

 seem exhausted But stay ! What have we here ? A sort of 

 rough excrescence seeming to grow out of the tree, just within 

 the edge of its shell-like trunk, AYhen we come to look at it, 

 it seems not, however, like a vegetable growth, nor yet a 

 vagary of "decay's" sometimes creative " fingers ;" it is the 

 wood-built structure of a Caterpillar, and his present dormitory, 

 now that he has cast off his working dress, and put on the 

 monastic habit of an idle chrysalis. Let us look into his cell, 

 or at least on its exterior, a little closer. 



