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Dark Days of Insect Life [FOURTH WEEK 



loosen, and their petioles break, it is merely a larger brown 

 nut than usual that falls to the ground, the kernel of 

 which will sprout next June and blossom into the big 

 moth of delicate fawn tints, feathery horned, with those 

 strange isinglass windows in his hind wings. 



Luna the weird, beautiful moon-moth, whose pale 



green hues and long grace- 

 ful streamers make us re- 

 alise how much beauty we 

 miss if we neglect the 

 night life of summer 

 when clad in her tempo- 

 rary shroud of silk, some- 

 times falls to the ground, 

 or again the cocoon re- 

 mains in the tree or bush 

 where it was spun. 



But Prometheus, the 

 smallest of the quartet, 

 has a way all his own. 

 The elongated cocoon, 

 looking like a silken fin- 

 ger, is woven about a leaf of sassafras. Even the long 

 stem of the leaf is silk-girdled, and a strong band is 

 looped about the twig to which the leaf is attached. 

 Here, when all the leaves fall, he hangs, the plaything of 

 every breeze, attracting the attention of all the hungry 

 birds. But little does Prometheus care. Sparrows may 

 hover about him and peck in vain; chickadees may clutch 

 the dangling finger and pound with all their tiny might. 



PROMETHEUS MOTH AND COCOON 



