294 



NATURE SKETCHES IN TEMPERATE AMERICA 



In a long stroll it is not uncommon to find the fragments 

 of moth wings lying on the surface of leaves, or on old stumps of 

 trees, where they fall after being picked to pieces by a roving 

 fly-catcher, or other birds. I have frequently found their 

 remains in webs spun by spiders. Other moths had been killed 

 by the small jumping spiders. But besides the geometrid 

 moths, countless other insects and spiders resort to the leafy 

 cover for their protection. At the edge of the woods, on the 

 underside of the hairy boneset leaves, I find the harvestmen, 

 or daddy-long-legs, quietly reposing, ]>robably after a foraging 

 expedition after some larvae. Near the top of this i)lant, under 

 the leaf shelter, a globose-bodied spider has taken up his resi- 

 dence. The sun's rays, coming down through an opening in 

 the trees, have lured the red-striped cercoj)id to the upper 

 surface of the elderberry leaves. But on the slightest touch 

 or move, quick as a flash, they run sideways to the margin of 

 the leaves, where they disappear underneath. 



Examples of the imder-leaf inhabitants might be added to 

 those already given, but these will suffice to show some of those 

 living in our forest interiors. 



Branch of the Button-bush 



