194 -P^o/. Frey, and some American Tcneina. 



one of the leaves to its original form, as near as may be, and behold 

 the deadened portion of the under surface tears open, sliowing the 

 upper surface nearly intact, and a little cave formed inside of the leaf 

 by the shrinkage of the under surface, and in this cave we find only a 

 little caterpillar ! Nothing very worthy all this trouble in that, cer- 

 tainly. Well, turn over one of the leaves, and then on the other sur- 

 face you will find a blotch of a difierent kind ; it is flat, the upper 

 surface of the leaf is deadened and loosened, but there is no cavity 

 under it. Open it. We find still onl)^ a caterpillar. It differs, how- 

 ever, from the preceding one ; that was like ordinary caterpillars, 

 nearly cylindrical-f-this is depressed, almost flat. Pluck yet this other 

 leaf from the wild cherry ; you will observe on its upper surface a 

 very narrow, winding black line, bordered with crimson on each side. 

 It winds and curves about like the undulations of some tiny, gaily 

 colored serpent, yet a three cent piece will cover the whole of it out of 

 sight. Hold it up between you and the light ; at its larger end you 

 will see still only a caterpillar, exceedingly minute, and differing from 

 each of the others. These are what we call mined leaves, and the 

 mines are those of three, perhaps four species of MiGvo-Lepidoptera. 

 But what are Micro- Lepidopteraf Well, you may translate it literally, 

 little scale-wings, just as you may call butterflies and large moths, big 

 scale-wings. They are little moths of the family Teneina; the same 

 family to which " the moth," that good housekeepers complain of, 

 belongs. But the family is a very large one, and, to say the truth, 

 many members of the family seem to be very little akin to each other, 

 except in a Darwinian sense. The clothes moth, the housekeepers' 

 enemy, has nothing to brag of in the way of beauty, and certainly 

 still less in the way of usefulness ; and besides, although it has man- 

 aged to give its name to the family Teneina, it is hardly in any sense 

 a fair representative of the family ; in fact, it is rather a disgrace to 

 the family. But the little leaf-mining species contain among them 

 the gems, I had almost said, of the animate creation. Minute as they 

 are, and requiring the aid of a good pocket lens, or better still, a mi- 

 croscope of low power, to bring out their beauties, they excell by far, 

 in my judgment, all the flowers, birds, butterflies, etc., of the animate 

 kingdom. Perhaps a majority of the plants in any one region, cer- 

 tainly a great number of them, have each a species mining its leaves 

 in the larva or caterpillar state. But it is not in that condition that 

 they are beautiful, by any means. All of their adornment is lavished 

 on the imago, as naturalists call it, that is, the perfect insect, the moth, 

 after it has passed through its metamorphosis, and taken flight on its 

 long fringed wings. And if these lines should fall under the eye of 



