286 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



threatens to kill instead protects. Last Septem- 

 ber I watched two larvae of the rather common 

 moth, Protoparce sexta, the tomato sphinx. 

 Great fat green fellows as large as one's thumb, 

 they were, each with a spinelike thorn cocked 

 jauntily on his rear segment. They had fattened 

 on my tomato vines until they had reached their 

 full growth and were ready to go into the cocoon 

 stage, in winter quarters. They dropped from 

 the vines and began to wander hastily, but seem- 

 ingly aimlessly, on the ground beneath. But 

 careful watching showed that each was poking at 

 the ground every few lengths as he crawled, seek- 

 ing a situation that suited him. Before long each 

 had started to burrow, going into the earth slowly 

 and laboriously, but steadily worming a way in. 

 Each went out of sight, leaving a hole just his 

 own size behind him, such a hole as I might have 

 made by pressure with a round stick. A week 

 later I dug them up. They had gone down five 

 or six inches, turned head upward, and there they 

 were, each a conical brown pupa that bore little 

 resemblance to the naked green caterpillars that 

 had gone down into the earth a week before. 

 Barring the accident of my spade, which neither 

 could foresee, they were safe from cold and 



