THE APPLE MOTH. Ill 



characteristic of many moths; though not Chameleon-like, or having the power to 

 adapt themselves in color to the object on which they rest at the time, they are so 

 strikingly like the bark of the trees on which we find them as nearly always to escape 

 our notice. This insect in its pupa state, like many others, will be found torpid 

 and apparently helpless in its cocoon ; but when its time comes to escape from this 

 mummy condition it has some locomotive power, and by a kind of wriggling motion 

 forces itself to an outside opening. This is a necessity to the perfecting of the wings ; 

 they could not be expanded in so confined a space. The silk-worm moth liberates 

 herself from her cocoon by burning a passage-way with an acid. The dragon-fly, in 

 its immature condition, is a kind of bug and lives in water; when about to become a 

 winged insect it will creep up a rush or reed until out of water, and make itself fast to 

 this reed by its claws, when the back of its sub-marine case will open, and the perfect 

 insect emerges. That is what the seventeen-year locust comes out of the ground for. 

 The young mosquito floats to the surface of the water, and the sub-marine coat splits 

 open. First her head, then her body emerges ; finally, she will be seen standing straight 

 up in her former skin like a mast in a canoe. All these insects and many more 

 could be mentioned assume this perpendicular position immediately on leaving their 

 pupa cases. If watched, the little wings that had hitherto been compressed into the 

 smallest possible space will now be seen to enlarge gradually ; there will be an occa- 

 sional slight flutter. The fluids of the body would seem to be settling there gravity 

 aids them and soon they will be expanded to their utmost limits. Such wings as 



those of the Apple Moth could never have been unfolded in the cocoon between 







these scales of bark. She does not resort to the appliances of chemistry, as the silk- 

 worm does in the use of acids ; but she is equally philosophical, and appeals to the 

 force of gravity. 



The life of this insect as a moth is short. If she came to this last and perfect 

 condition early in the season, the fruits would not be ready for her, and she would 

 die before fulfilling her mission. Nature makes no such mistakes. The fruits will 

 be ready for the moths when the moths are ready for the fruits. In a few weeks the 

 caterpillar or worm from the egg of this moth will be matured, and found in its 

 cocoon under a scale of bark, appearing as a moth in August; living as a caterpillar 

 not half as many weeks as the winter caterpillar did months; the one living in a tem- 

 perature far below zero, and frozen solid as ice ; the other knowing the hottest weather 



