THE DARK DAYS OF INSECT LIFE 23 



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 is 

 "bound," indeed, and merely swings the faster, 

 up and down, from side to side. 



It is interesting to note that when two Prome- 

 theus cocoons, fastened upon their twigs, were 

 suspended in a large cageful of native birds, it 

 took a healthy chickadee just three days of hard 

 pounding and unravelling to force a way through 

 the silken envelopes to the chrysalids within. 

 Such long continued and persistent labour for so 

 comparatively small a morsel of food would not 

 be profitable or even possible out-of-doors in win- 

 ter. The bird would starve to death while forcing 

 its way through the protecting silk. 



These are only four of the many hundreds of 

 cocoons, from the silken shrouds on the topmost 

 branches to the jugnecked chrysalis of a sphinx 

 moth offering us the; riddle of a winter's shelter 

 buried in the cold, dark earth. 



Is everything frozen tight ? Has Nature 's frost 

 mortar cemented every stone in its bed? Then 

 cut off the solid cups of the pitcher plants, and 

 see what insects formed the last meal of these 

 strange growths, ants, flies, bugs, encased in 

 ice like the fossil insects caught in the amber sap 

 which flowed so many thousands of years ago, 



