2 



THE ARTIST OF THE NASTURTIUM. 



"And there's never a blade or a leaf too mean 

 To be some happy creature's palace." 



— Lowell. 



• 



0]\IE leaves have pictures of snakes on them," 

 said little Jack as he presented me with a 

 nasturtium boqnet. 



" AVho makes the pictures ? '' I asked. 

 "Nobody," he responded promptly. 

 Hold one of the leaves up between vour eves and 

 the light and look at one of the snake pictures,'' I 

 suggested. 



After a moment ut" close observation he shouted : 

 ''There something alive in the head of the snake! I 

 can see it move ! What is it ? " 

 I was obliojed to confess that I did not know what it was. And 

 so I concluded to ask the Junior Naturalists to help me lind out the 

 cause of these strano-e markino;s on the nasturtium leaves, and the 

 way they are made. The cpiestions, "What?" "How?" and 

 " What for r' alwavs confront the true naturalist. 



r will tell you all that I know about these queer pictures on the 

 nasturtium leaf ; then I shall expect every true Junior jSTaturalist 

 who has access to a nasturtium plant to help me discover the rest of 

 the storv. 



All that I know is that this strange pattern in the leaf is made by 

 a leaf miner, a very small insect that spends most of its life burrow- 

 ing in the substance that lies between the upper and lower surfaces 

 of the leaf. 



The mother of the leaf miner has wings, but whether she has 

 two or four wings, I do not know: if she is a fly she has two; if 

 she is a moth she has four. Sometime during the summer she laid 

 an Qg^ on the leaf; from this Qgg there hatched a little larva, a 

 worm like creature, that beo-an at once to burrow in the leaf. Tliis 

 is all I know. 



Will the Junior Xaturalists answer some or all of the following 



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