54 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



wouldn't stay to get it, Tliat was precisely the case 

 with the ailanthus cocoons ; they gave way before the 

 bills of the mischievous, chattering sparrows, who 

 could, therefore, make no impression on them. 

 Those cocoons were even more carefully attached than 

 these of the Prometheus, the twigs on which they 

 hung being wrapped for ten and tw^elve inches from the 

 stem, which was also carefully bound about WMth a 

 quite decided ribbon of fine yellownsh white silk. The 

 leaves and leaf-stalk w-ere tightly wrapped to the 

 twig, and thus all were carefully suspended aloft, 

 where they hung through the entire winter. Now, I 

 do not know from actual observation that the spar- 

 rows wished to tear open the cocoon for the sake of the 

 contents, but I have thought that, in early spring, at 

 least, their motive may have been to get material for 

 their nests." 



"Why should the sparrows wish to obtain the con- 

 tents of a cocoon ?" asked Abby. " Could they eat the 

 pupa ?" 



" That they could, for the pupa is little more than a 

 mass of vital juices, contained within a not very tough 

 crust. I have said that I have no positive evidence to 

 convict our English sparrows of preying upon the 

 Cecropia pupse, but I cannot say us nuich for some 

 other birds. There is at least one bird, the hairy 

 woodpecker (Picus villosus Linn.), from whose beak the 

 staunch cocoon of the Cecrojna oflers no protection 

 whatever. 



"I have noticed (Uic dl' thcsi' l)ir(ls, during the carlv 



