NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



In six weeks the young are hatched. They are about 

 a sixteenth of an inch long, tiny miniatures of a pupa- 

 shell. The first pair of their six legs are relatively large, 

 shaped somewhat like lobsters' claws, and armed with 

 strong spines beneath. They have shoulder-knots, the 

 future wing-buds, and attached to the mouth and car- 

 ried under the breast is a long beak. These wee creat- 

 urelings fling themselves from their cradles " on the tree 

 top" and fall to the ground as lightly as thistle-down. 

 At once they begin to burrow, their strong fore legs ena- 

 bling them to dig rapidly. Down they go until they 

 have reached a roost upon some branching rootlet. 

 Clearing away a little cell around the root, they fasten 

 their sharp beaks into the tender bark and pump out 

 the sap, which becomes for them both meat and drink. 

 There they stay and thus they live until their long 

 pupilage of seventeen years is ended. 



We may perhaps venture to guess that during this 

 period they burrow back and forth amitl the maze of 

 roots, and drink long and deep from the streams of 

 savory sap which they tap with their beaks. They 

 thrive and grow. They take no end of sleep. Perhaps 

 they greet one another, and pass who knows what 

 connnunications, in the mysterious language of the 

 nmte children of the insect world. 



When Nature gives the signal, an irresistible impulse 

 seizes the entire host. They leave their caverns and, 

 guided by an unerring instinct, mount upward. When 

 the spring winds blow softly, out they come. Soon the 

 air is filled with the flutter of their wings, and the rolling 

 of their drums is heard among the trees. In six weeks 

 they are gone, an extinguished nation, and silence falls 

 upon the groves. 



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