296 SHARP EYES 



for every one of these thousands of bag-worm babes 

 have followed the same plans and specifications. The 

 tiny inverted arch is first built. When this has reached 

 nearly to the height of its body, the caterpillar grasps 

 it with its feet and turns a somersault, thus bringing 

 the arch uppermost. The builder then carefully turns 

 beneath it, and upon regaining its feet proceeds to add 

 to the structure on the lower edges until a complete 

 ring is formed around its body, when, by adding tier 

 on tier of chips, the bag is soon completed. My swarm 

 above described, showed thousands of the houses in all 

 these stages of progress. 



But where was my moth? I waited for it in vain. 

 And no wonder; for upon dissecting the cocoons, I 

 could find no chrysalis from which I could expect a 

 moth. Many of the cocoons were entirely empty, and 

 the others contained only a chrysalis shell filled with 

 eggs and a peculiar fuzz. This will be found to be the 

 contents of the cocoons which we may now gather from 

 the trees. But there is a moth not such as we might 

 select as the prize of our collection, it is true a small, 

 black- bodied, clear- winged, buzzing, bumblebee affair, 

 whose only ambition in life would seem to be to bump 

 its head against everything in its reach. This is the 

 male moth. It was years before I could ever find the 

 female, partly because I had gathered the cocoons at 

 the wrong season, and partly because my powers of ob- 

 servation had not been sufficiently trained. Lest other 

 youthful entomologists may become puzzled like myself 

 over this very singular insect, I may mention that both 

 sexes of the moth are to be found in the cocoons gath- 

 ered in September. At this time the full-grown cater- 

 pillars suspend their baskets, and are transformed into 



