WHAT THE WOOLLY BEAR SAID 



303 



came over me and I also wanted to be like that. Then I fotmd 

 that I could spin some silk threads out of my mouth so I set to 

 work to cover myself up. I moved my head back and forth 

 fastening the silk in the comer of the box and from the sides to the 

 bottom, making a little curtain around me. 



Teacher saw me and showed the children so they could see me 



making my 

 little silk co- 

 coon as my 

 curtain 

 arotmd me is 

 called. Asmv 

 hairs were 

 now coming 

 out I wove 

 them in also 

 and soon I 

 had finished 

 and curled up 

 in my com- 

 partment 

 which was 



The Isabella tiger-moths, the adults of the woolly bear. 

 The larger is the female 



Photo by M. V. Slingerland. 



much smaller than I had been There I again slept. 



Once more I awoke and pushed out of my little cocoon and 

 climbed to the top of my box over which had been placed a net. 

 "VVTiat change had come over me. I was no longer a black and 

 brown haired woolly bear; neither had I a silk cocoon arotmd me 

 but I had soft hairs on my body and, stranger still, four wings on 

 my shoulders. My color was now grayish-yellow or tawny, my 

 hind wings were tinted with dull orange and there were black 

 dots on my wings and bod\-. 



In place of the arbutus there was now trilliums on the teacher's 

 desk, and an oriole was singing from an elm tree. It was the last 

 of May. Could it be possible that in a month I should have 

 changed from a wooly bear to this wonderful being? 



Again I was showed to the children but this time as the I sabella 

 Tiger Moth. 



"Why, how pretty," said Mary, "did it really come from that 

 worm?" 



Again teacher smiled. 



