102 MOTHS WINTEEING. 



parure of black, white, and scarlet. These are the progeny 

 of a pretty white moth, yclept the gold-tail, from a tuft of 

 gold-coloured hair at the end of her body. Protected in the 

 above and various other manners, a number of future Moths 

 and Butterflies are now existent in the forms of Egg and Cater- 

 pillar, but many more of them, by far indeed the larger por- 

 tion, have been sleeping away the winter, and are slumbering 

 3^et, as Chrysalides* To "disquiet and bring up" one of these 

 Insect' mummies' from darkness into light, let us make the 

 n-e^tt p"hfje<bt t of '.qiu?; walk. If we had had with us our exhuming 

 digger, we might soon unearth some from beneath the trees 

 about us, but in default of a trowel, we must seek a chrysalis 

 buried indeed, but not within the ground. The light vege- 

 table mould, which fills the trunk of this decayed willow, 

 has often furnished us with an Aurelian treasure, and if one 

 is to be found there now, a stick will suffice for its discovery. 

 This time, however, explore it as we may, our mine would 

 seem exhausted But stay ! "What have we here ? A sort of 

 rough excrescence seeming to grow out of the tree, just within 

 the edge of its shell-like trunk. When we come to look at it, 

 it seems not, however, like a vegetable growth, nor yet a vagary 

 of "decay's" sometimes creative " fingers ;" it is the wood-built 

 structure of a Caterpillar, and his present dormitory, now that 

 he has cast off his working dress, and put on the monastic 

 habit of an idle chrysalis. Let us look c into his cell, or at 

 least on its exterior, a little closer. 



