WINTER TENANTS OF OUR TREES. 47 



pupal state, wherein it will remain nntil late in May or 

 early June next, wlien it will emerge as a perfect 

 insect." 



"Well, well," exclaimed Abby ; "it is an ' oft told 

 tale,' but it seems more wonderful to me to-day than 

 ever before. Of course it is a ridiculous fancy ; but 

 do you know I can't help Avondering if the moth knows 

 itself when it emerges ! I mean, does it have any 

 recollection of its larval and pupal estate ? What do 

 you think ? It's a foolish notion, I daresay !" 



"Not at all; others have had the same thought. 

 But who can say ? Perhaps when im have passed 

 through some such transformation, we may have more 

 light on this and other of Nature's mysteries ; but until 

 then we must be content to guess at the possible expe- 

 rience of a moth. All we can say is that the mother 

 insect always comes to the tree, whether oak or maple, 

 on which it was reared as a larva to deposit her eggs. 

 Possibly the ghost of a faint impression of the acrid 

 flavor of oak-leaf may haunt the pairs of nervous 

 ganglia that serve for brains in a Polyphemus, and so 

 may urge the creature to haunt its larval resorts. One 

 would think, however, that all sense of its old person- 

 ality had been buried and left in this pupal sarcopha- 

 gus. But then, again, who knows ? We might as well 

 call the mental processes of both grub and imago 

 instinct, and pass on." 



"I have another question," said the schoolma'am. 

 "You see I am moved by lii^ ancestral traditions, if 

 the moth is not, and ask questions like a genuine 



