WILDWOOD WAYS 



haps the perpetual magic of life which 

 seems to well up from swampy woodland 

 had seized upon him as it seizes upon all 

 that passes and made him the bearer of 

 its potency. Across the bog to the pond 

 outlet, through this spring-soft atmo- 

 sphere lies a slender road, lined with 

 thickets, where I do not wonder the Callo- 

 samia promethia, the spice-bush silk- 

 moth, likes to spin his own winter snug- 

 gery and dangle in the soft air till the 

 real spring taps at his silken doorway 

 and soft rains lift the latch and let him 

 out. 



Not far away, among the leaves that 

 lie ankle deep among the shrubbery that 

 skirts the hickories and oaks, are the 

 cocoons of Actias luna; among them, 

 shed from the oaks, are those of Telia 

 Polyphemus, and if I seek, it is not diffi- 

 cult to find the big pouch where Samia 

 14 



