PUSS CATERPILLAR. 169 



horn-like tails, and sphinx-like attitudes, seem to have so little 

 of the crawling worm about them, that one can hardly help 

 regarding them almost as creatures sui generis. Specimens 

 of these may be found, next month, upon the poplar, lime, and 

 privet. 



But foremost of our favourites, among their kind, are those 

 wonders of the willow, the gaudy caterpillars of the puss 

 moth, 1 which sitting up so demurely on their boughs look, 

 even more than the sphinxes, like animals which " stand " 

 as well as sit " alone." 2 After having watched and tended 

 one of these singular creatures from its tiny kittenhood (and 

 then very like a kitten it is) up to the period of its caterpillar 

 growth, we have really missed it from its 'customed seat a 

 perch of willow stretched across its box ; and whereon, when 

 nearly arrived at its bulky maturity, we have often upheld its 

 painted body, while, with head protruded from its hood-like 

 shoulders, it has set busily to work upon a fresh supply of 

 leafy provender. 



Now only let some of those, who laugh at the idea of fond- 

 ness for a caterpillar, ask themselves if they have never felt 

 fondness for that whereon a caterpillar feeds for a plant we 

 mean that peculiar liking, distinct from general, which we are 

 apt to entertain for a favourite plant of our own. To tend on 

 anything day by day to minister to its benefit for that thing 

 to depend on us for life though perfectly unconscious of such 

 dependence is enough, it can hardly be disputed, to create a 

 feeling which borders on attachment for even an inanimate object. 

 Is it strange, then, that from the like causes the like result 

 should follow with a creature endowed with consciousness, and 

 possessed of senses resembling our own ? 



We know, indeed, that flowers are (as they should be) 

 universally loved, while insects (the creatures of all others most 

 nearly allied to them) are, as they should not be, almost univer- 



1 Cerura vinula. 2 See vignette to " A Summer's Day's Dream." 



