368 NA TURE-ST UD Y RE VIE W 



CHAPTER III. 



The Pupa 

 July 21. 



I have just been watching Columbus and Ferdinand swinging 

 from leaf to leaf. It is marvelous that they are able to support 

 their great bodies on such tiny legs, seemingly as great a task as if 

 I were to swing across a seven foot chasm with Bailey Hall on my 

 back. Think of a mule with the proportionate kicking ability of a 

 flea beetle. 



Ferdinand looks queer. The skin on his back is dry and 

 wrinkled. He is restless and not pleased with his food. 



I put the glass in the window but neither he nor Columbus liked 

 the cold air. Ferdinand hid himself in a curled-up leaf and Col- 

 umbus got behind a stalk. 



July 23. 



This morning I fotind Ferdinand on the ground at the bottom 

 of the glass with his head buried in the mud. I put him back on a 

 leaf and washed the mud off his head. He moved his front legs as 

 though he were greatly disgusted with me and rolled down to the 

 ground again. I put him back once more but he climbed down 

 with such great deliberation that I decided he knew what he was 

 about. 



I watched him and he began to part the earth with his feet and to 

 work his way down into the ground. Then it dawned upon me 

 that it was time for him to pupate and he was digging himself a grave. 

 I flew to his aid with a hair pin, but again I failed to please for he 

 moved off and began in a new place. 



It was the strangest funeral I ever saw. No undertaker and the 

 corpse officiating. It made me think of the poem commemoratmg 

 the burial of that gallant Englishman, Sir John Moore, of course 

 it wasn't "darkly at dead of night" but like 



"No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 

 Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him, 

 But he lay like a warrior taking his rest 

 With the mud drawn up around him." 



I changed the last line. That is poetic license. 

 July 23, 6:39. 



Columbus' back has the same parched look that Ferdinand's had 

 when he went into the ground. I suppose Columbus will dis- 



