68 FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



however, instead of wearing their caps on their heads, they 

 wore them standing up from their hind-quarters, almost per- 

 pendicularly. They roamed about gaily inside the tube, 

 which was a spacious dwelling for such mites. I was quite 

 determined to find out with what materials and in what 

 manner the first outlines of the cap were woven. 



Fortunately the chrysalid bag was far from being empty. 

 I found within the rumpled wrapper a second family as 

 numerous as those already out of the case. Altogether there 

 must have been five or six dozen eggs. I transferred to another 

 place the little Caterpillars who were already dressed, keep- 

 ing only the naked new-comers in the tube. They had bright 

 red heads ; the rest of their bodies was dirty- white ; and 

 they measured hardly a twenty-fifth of an inch in length. 



I had not long to wait. The next day, little by little, 

 singly or in groups, the little laggards left the chrysalid bag. 

 They came out without breaking that frail object, through 

 the opening in front made by their mother. Not one of them 

 used it as a dress-material, though it had the delicacy and 

 amber colouring of an onion skin ; nor did any of them make 

 use of a certain fine quilting that lines the inside of the bag 

 and forms an exquisitely soft bed for the eggs. One would 

 have thought this downy stuff would make an excellent 

 blanket for the chilly creatures, but not a single one used it. 

 There would not be enough to go round. 



They all went straight to the coarse outer casing of sticks, 

 which I had left in contact with the chrysalid skin contain- 

 ing the eggs. The matter was urgent, they evidently felt. 

 Before making your entrance into the world and going a-hunt- 

 ing, you must first be clad. All therefore, with equal fury, 

 attacked the old sheath and hastily dressed themselves in 

 their mother's old clothes. 



Some turned their attention to bits that happened to be 

 opened lengthwise, scraping the soft white inner layer ; others, 

 greatly daring, penetrated into the tunnel of a hollow stalk 

 and collected their materials in the dark. The courage of 



