146 EYE SPY 
DEAR MR. GIBSON, I have sent you to-day what 1 take to 
be three cocoons. These with three others I picked up from a 
gravel-walk in Po'keepsie over a year ago. They seemed con- 
nected at the ends, but easily broke apart. I kept them, pur- 
posing to see what would emerge, but nothing has rewarded my 
watch, and they seem now to be shrivelling up. Can you give 
me any information in regard to them ? If so, I shall be very 
grateful to you. 
I had barely read half through the brief de- 
scription when I guessed the nature of the co- 
coons in question, having received similar letters 
before, as well as verbal queries, from others who 
had been puzzled by the non - committal speci- 
mens. The fact that they were found " on the 
gravel-walk," and were loosely " connected at the 
ends," was in itself strong evidence of their ques- 
tionable nature, and I felt sure that I should rec- 
ognize the cocoons as old friends. And I did. 
Upon opening the box, I found three of them 
packed in a mass of cotton, two of them still 
loosely attached at the ends, the third one some- 
what disintegrated. Each was about an inch in 
length, and half an inch in thickness, somewhat 
egg or cocoon shaped. Upon being separated, 
one end of each was seen to be hollowed out, and 
had thus previously received the pointed end of 
its fellow in the " connected " condition in which 
they had been found. In color they were a 
mouse gray precisely, and to the careless observer 
might have appeared to consist of caterpillar silk, 
