The Life of the Caterpillar 



rested communicates its virtue to other places 

 by simple contact, as witness the Moths 

 crowding to the seat of the cane-bottomed 

 chair after the oak-branch had fallen from it. 



Let us use one of the best beds, flannel, for 

 instance, and we shall see a curious thing. I 

 place at the bottom of a long test-tube or of 

 a narrow-necked bottle, just wide enough to 

 allow of the Moth's passage, a piece of flannel 

 on which the mother has been lying all the 

 morning. The callers go into the vessels, 

 flounder about, do not know how to get out 

 again. I have invented a mouse-trap for them 

 by means of which I could do terrific execu- 

 tion. Let us release the poor things, remove 

 the piece of stuff and put it away in an her- 

 metically closed box. The infatuated Moths 

 go back to the test-tube, headlong reenter 

 the trap. They are attracted by the effluvia 

 which the saturated flannel has imparted to 

 the glass. 



I am fully convinced. To summon the 

 Moths of the district to the wedding, to ap- 

 prise them at a distance of her presence and 

 to guide them, the bride emits an extremely 

 subtle scent, imperceptible to our own organs 

 of smell. With the mother Monk held to 



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