130 THE RING OF NATURE 



colours being staring enough to startle any bird 

 in Christendom, and the community soon breaks 

 up. 



The egger family is a distinguished one in its 

 caterpillars as well as in its moths. But whereas 

 the latter are very strong of whig and hard to 

 catch or even see, the larvae are conspicuous and 

 often found. The drinker demands admission 

 to the group. What naturalist's heart has not 

 leaped a little at seeing in spring his first drinker 

 larva stretched out on a grass blade, and who 

 that has collected a dozen of them and fed them 

 on grass kept fresh by having the ends dipped in 

 water has not had much delight in the egg-like 

 cocoon that the full-fed monster spins, and the 

 big yellow moth, probably never seen in the wild, 

 that emerges ? 



Some of them, however, nourish in their bodies 

 unseen the maggot of the ichneumon fly, eating 

 greedily of the animal's fat, but carefully abstaining 

 from its vital organs. The caterpillar gets 

 flabbier and weaker, and at length, when the moth 

 should come forth from the thinly woven cocoon, 

 or before the poor beast can attempt to weave a 

 shroud, the small cocoons of a fly burst from its 

 body and from them go forth other ichneumons to 

 their fell work. 



The drinker and many of the eggers are notable 

 as large caterpillars early in the year, because 

 they began life last summer and have spent the 

 winter in caterpillar form. There is a fine monster 



