90 ANIMALS AND INSECTS 



not always remain a caterpillar. When it has had 

 plenty to eat and is quite fat, it goes away by itself 

 once more and curls up into a tight ball, and then 

 instead of going right to sleep it first weaves for 

 itself a cradle or cocoon out of silk, weaving in the 

 long brown hairs that cover its body with such a 

 thick coat. 



In that little cradle it sleeps very soundly. So 

 deep and sound is its sleep that one would think it 

 dead. But the caterpillar is not dead. It is only 

 changing its form within that closely woven bed. 

 It was a caterpillar when it stripped ofT its little fur 

 coat and rolled up in it; when it bites a hole in the 

 fur coat wrapping and comes out, it is a moth, a 

 pretty, white and yellow moth with black spots upon 

 its wings and body. 



It is just as if a fairy had touched the crawling 

 caterpillar with her wand and while it slept an en- 

 chanted sleep had changed it into that pretty, winged 

 creature. But the wand that touches the cater- 

 pillar in its deep sleep, and bids it live again as a 

 butterfly, is the law of God for its being. Is it not a 

 marvelous thing? 



Just think of a caterpillar, a common-looking 

 creature with its shapeless body and its many short 

 legs, being changed into a butterfly. Think how dif- 

 ferent the butterfly is with its graceful body, its six 

 long, slender legs and its beautiful wings glistening 

 with gorgeous colors. 



By day the butterflies sip the nectar from the 

 flowers, flying hither and thither in the sunlit air. 

 At night they go to sleep. The moths, on the other 



