175 



phosis. It is incomplete in the sense that complished during the quiet pupal stage 



the change is not of a very radical nature, in the cocoon. Because the pupa is ap- 



But in the case of the silk worm moths, parently passive when viewed from the 



and moths and butterflies in general, the exterior, one must not conclude that it is 



larva which hatches from the eggs has so internally; far from it; the digestive 



not even the most superficial resem- organs of the larva must be completely 



blance to the adult insect, the fully-devel- made over from those of a chewing leaf 



oped moth. This necessitates a complete eater to those of a moth which can only 



change or metamorphosis in the form take liquid food. 



and structure of the insect before it can Charles Christopher Adams, 



become mature. This great change is ac- 



CASTLES IN THE AIR. 



In a little bend of the San Joaquin early spring days their last refuge 



River, where the current, attempting between the cultivation and the deep 



to straighten its course, has left a bank sea, or rather, river, 

 a few feet wide, there is a small grove In the tops of the cottonwoods live 



of tall cottonwood trees, perhaps a a number of baronial families in castles 



dozen in number, whose branches lean huge, gray and ugly, overlooking the 



far over the stream and whose tops sweep of the stream. They are the 



reach almost to the level of the bluff Great Blue Herons whose Latin title, 



or rather the floor of the valley 250 (Ardea herodias), gives one some idea 



feet above, for this swift river has, in of their ancient lineage. They claim to 



the course of ages, cut thus deep a be older than the storks of Egypt, and 



channel for itself. indeed, they look older as they stand 



The place is not easy of access, for humpbacked and sleepy on one leg by 

 the shore narrows above and below the the side of their nests, the long fringe 

 bend to a few inches where one with of light-speckled neck feathers under- 

 difficulty keeps from crumbling away neath looking like a long gray beard 

 the sand with his feet and falling into sweeping over their recurved neck and 

 the water, and the cliff is so nearly breast. There is a wise look about 

 perpendicular that in many places it is them, too, for the black markings of the 

 inaccessible to a climber, being of soft head sweep back over the eye and pro- 

 sand whose different stratas are clearly long into the appearance of a quill ex- 

 defined where they have been sliced tending behind their ears, 

 off by the cutting stream. Though they are almost four feet 



The valley above is a vast grainfield long and spread their wings to six feet 



out almost to the edge of the bluff, and and over, the herons' large blue-grey 



along the edge and face of the bluff, bodies are often almost indistinguish- 



wherever root can cling or tendril hold, able from the bark of the cottonwood 



grow beautiful wild flowers in the branches and the blue of the sky 



