;o 



SHARP EYES 



for your collection. You have had an instructive lesson in one 

 department of entomology of which you knew nothing before, 

 and those wasps should properly have had a place in your cab- 

 inet side by side with the beautiful moth ; for, singular as it may 

 seem, nature has designed that these insects should be quite in- 

 timately associated much too intimately to be agreeable to the 

 Polyphemus, as I will explain. 



" As I told you, those three cocoons were spun by three cater- 

 pillars, exactly alike to all outward appearance, and of the* spe- 

 cies called Attacus (or Telea) Polyphemus. One of the cocoon* 

 has yielded its perfect development in the beautiful moth. The 

 other two caterpillars did their best, poor things ! to win a simi- 

 lar future, but that was a matter beyond their control ; and their 

 fate may serve the moralist as an illustration of what a sad 

 transformation the deadly thrust of a little sin may bring abouf . 



"The caterpillars were bewitched before they spun their co- 

 coons ' voudooed,' as they say down 

 South. And the voudoo? Well, 

 you let loose a whole brood 

 of the witches to continue 

 iheir mischief when 

 those ' wasps ' escaped 



(l 



