The Caddis-Worm 



and the next, the Caddis-worm turns by the 

 width of an arc corresponding with the length 

 of a soldering. The regularity of the method 

 produces the regularity of the work; but it is 

 essential, of course, that the materials should 

 lend themselves to precise coordination. 



In its natural pond, the Caddis-worm does 

 not often have at its disposal the picked joists 

 which I give it in the tumbler. It comes 

 across something of everything; and that 

 something of everything it employs as it finds 

 it. Bits of wood, large seeds, empty shells, 

 stubble-stalks, shapeless fragments are used 

 in the building for better or for worse, just 

 as they occur, without being trimmed by the 

 saw; and this jumble, the result of chance, 

 results in a shockingly faulty structure. 



The Caddis-worm does not forget its ta- 

 lents; but it lacks choice pieces. Give it a 

 proper timber-yard and it at once reverts to 

 correct architecture, of which it carries the 

 plans within itself. With small, dead pond- 

 snails, all of the same size, it fashions a splen- 

 did patchwork scabbard; with a cluster of 

 slender roots, reduced by rotting to their stiff, 

 straight, woody axis, it manufactures pretty 

 specimens of wicker-work which could serve 



as models to our basket-makers. 



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