242 EYE SPY 



zled visitor, "and sa^v the white thing among the 

 . leaves, and took a closer look at it, and found it 

 was this. I never saw anything like it before, and 

 I thought perhaps you hadn't either, or, at least, 

 that if you had you could tell me something 

 about it. What ails him, anyhow.-^" 



The story was simply told, and my readers 

 who have followed my articles already know 

 what the story is. We remember the strange 

 history of those little, puzzling cocoon clusters 

 on a grass stem, those " bewitched cocoons " which 

 gave birth to swarms of tiny wasps instead of 

 moths, and we realize that here is more of the 

 same sort of mischief, all of which I explained 

 to my good neighbor, to his astonishment. How 

 a few weeks since, when our caterpillar was much 

 smaller than now, a tiny, black midget hovered 

 about him, and, in spite of all his wriggling and 

 squirming, stung him again and again, each time 

 inserting within his body its tiny eggs. Perhaps, 

 and probably in this case, from the number of the 

 white tokens, more than one of the flies took a 

 turn at the unlucky victim, for he certainly seems 

 to have got more than his share. 



" These eggs thus inserted beneath the skin of 

 the caterpillar," I explained, " soon hatched into 

 minute white grubs, which immediately fastened 

 themselves upon the tissues within the caterpil- 

 lar's body, and he is now obliged to eat for the 



