MiLLKk] THE TOBACCO WORM 117 



ments of the hawk and poise above the blossoms as do the hum- 

 ming-birds. Unhke the silk moths, they have well-developed 

 mouth-parts, and their tongues probe many a narrow corolla 

 which opens after the butterflies have gone to sleep. 



As the insect flutters hither and thither, sipping the sweet- 

 ness that is offered by the flowers, it pays for its treat by carry- 

 ing load after load of yellow pollen to the ripened and waiting 

 pistils of other blossoms — blossoms that we should be sorry to 

 lose from our gardens, but which, without the moth's aid would 

 be obliged to alter their floral arrangement or become extinct. 

 Truly, 



"More servants wait on man 

 Than he'll take notice of. In every path 

 He treads down that which doth befriend him." 



You should have heard him speak of what he loved ; of the 

 tent pitched beside the talking water; of the stars overhead at 

 night; of the blest return of morning, the peep of day over the 

 moors, the awaking birds among the birches ; how he abhorred 

 the long winter shut in cities; and with what delight, at the 

 return of the spring, he once more pitched his camp in the 

 living out-of-doors. — Robert Louis Stevenson. 



