146 EYE SPY 



Dear Mr. Gibson, — I have sent you to-day what I take to 

 be three cocoons. These with three others I picked up from a 

 gravel-walk in Po'keepsie over a year ago. They seemed con- 

 nected at the ends, but easily broke apart. I kept them, pur- 

 posing to see what would emerge, but nothing has rewarded my 

 watch, and they seem now to be shrivelling up. Can you give 

 me any information in regard to them ? If so, I shall be very 

 grateful to you. 



I had barely read half through the brief de- 

 scription when I guessed the nature of the co- 

 coons in question, having received similar letters 

 before, as well as verbal queries, from others who 

 had been puzzled by the non - committal speci- 

 mens. The fact that they were found " on the 

 gravel-walk," and were loosely " connected at the 

 ends," was in itself strong evidence of their ques- 

 tionable nature, and I felt sure that I should rec- 

 ognize the cocoons as old friends. And I did. 



Upon opening the box, I found three of them 

 packed in a mass of cotton, two of them still 

 loosely attached at the ends, the third one some- 

 what disintegrated. Each was about an inch in 

 length, and half an inch in thickness, somewhat 

 egg or cocoon shaped. Upon being separated, 

 one end of each was seen to be hollow^ed out, and 

 had thus previously received the pointed end of 

 its fellow in the "connected" condition in which 

 they had been found. In color they were a 

 mouse gray precisely, and to the careless observer 

 might have appeared to consist of caterpillar silk, 



