The Life of the Caterpillar 



contact of the pin produced a little spectacle 

 that surprised me : I saw a cloud of tiny 

 spangles at once detach themselves. These 

 spangles scattered in every direction : some 

 seemed to be shot into the air, others to the 

 sides; but the greater part of the cloud fell 

 softly to the ground. 



"Each of those bodies which I am calling 

 spangles is an extremely slender lamina, bear- 

 ing some resemblance to the atoms of dust 

 on the Moths' wings, but of course much big- 

 ger. . . . The disk that is so noticeable on 

 the hind-quarters of these Moths is there- 

 fore a heap and an enormous heap of 

 these scales. . . . The females seem to use 

 them to wrap their eggs in; but the Moths of 

 the Pine Caterpillar refused to lay while in my 

 charge and consequently did not enlighten me 

 as to whether they use the scales to cover 

 their eggs or as to what they are doing with 

 all those scales gathered round their hinder 

 part, which were not given them and placed 

 in that position to serve no purpose." 



You were right, my learned master: that 

 dense and regular crop of spangles did not 

 grow on the Moth's tail for nothing. Is 



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