280 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [15:7— Oct., 1919 



well as with other of her insect friends. One often finds afield, 

 a warm grassy nook hung with drying moult skins, a dressing room 

 where costumes have been changed between the acts of the continu- 

 ous insect tragedy and comedy. Samia had now reached the cli- 

 max of her ugliness. She seemed a great green worm. Only, 

 of course, she was not a worm, because she was a moth in the 

 making. Likely though that this worm-like form is tell-tale of 

 her remote ancestry. 



Having eaten until the ennui of existence that overtakes the 

 gourmand, who can find nothing new to his taste, came upon her, 

 she went into retirement. Within her cumbrous body was a whole 

 silk factory. Samia wove a silken fabric about herself as she clung 

 to a branch, and soon a brown silken cocoon became her shroud. 

 The first summer of her existence was over. Within the silken 

 warmth she passed the winter. But with the return of summer 

 Samia awoke to renewed life. One might have heard mysterious 

 motions within the cocoons upon the trees when tender leaves were 

 budding. Soon the silken strands at one end of the cocoon 

 were pushed aside and there crawled out a clumsy, bedraggled 

 object. Wearily it seemed to drag its length of attenuated body 

 behind it. Moist folds of skin hung down from its back. But 

 it seemed to know what it wanted, for mounting a twig bathed in 

 sunshine, it reefed in its profusion of body, expanded and dried its 

 limp wings. The wet mass of animated material that was so long 

 drawn out in crawling through the little gate way of its winter 

 prison quarters, transformed into the beautiful Samia. As dusk 

 came she tried her new wings, then flitted off into the gathering 

 gloom, not to feed, however, for she now disdains such prosiac 

 matters. Life is too short to waste thus when she may sail the 

 perfumed air and play among the moonbeams. 



How did her lover find her? The plumes he wears are not use- 

 less ornaments of a knight errant, but keen, sensory organs, by 

 which he scents the presence of his lady love, even when she is far 

 away. Their erratic flight together, the wanton display of grace 

 and strength as they flit hither and thither, the beating of their 

 wings in ecstacy of delight, is but the expression of an extravagance 

 of passionate admiration. Let these lovers be joyous while life 

 lasts. It will not be long. The mating time over, Samia will lay 

 her eggs, glue her cradles to some leaf or twig, and then, her mission 

 in life accomplished, her life will end as her mother's had done the 

 year before. 



