his usual morning run across the fields. 

 He seemed unwilling to leave the house, 

 filled with uneasy sadness. He tried to 

 content himself in his usual posture on 

 the floor, but finding no rest, changed 

 his position again and again, and finally 

 moving restlessly to the door, he looked 

 out uncertainly, as if the familiar places 

 called to him, and he longed, yet feared, 

 to go. Then he came back, paced around 

 a little and lay down again, repeating 

 this process many times. At last as if 

 his mind were made up, he rose again 



from his uneasy resting place, stole 

 quietly up to my sister where she sat 

 sewing by the window, and laying his 

 head in the old affectionate way upon 

 her arm, looked up into her face with 

 pitiful intentness, a long, sorrowful, ap- 

 pealing look, that seemed trying to ex- 

 press unutterable things, then turned and 

 left the house — went out reluctantly to 

 his fate, which lurked in the lifted gun 

 of Henry Williams, one of the colored 

 men on the place. That look was Billy's 

 last farewell. 



Ethel Allen Murphy. 



UNINVITED GUESTS 



From far and near have come to me 

 accounts, or specimens, of "a great, 

 green worm, with little white eggs on 

 its back." The misconception seems so 

 general that an explanation of the phe- 

 nomenon may not be amiss. 



The "great, green worm" is one of the 

 sphinx caterpillars, the larvae of one of 

 the so-called hawk-moths or humming 

 bird moths. The moth may often be 

 seen at twilight or early morning over 

 petunias or other deep-throated flowers, 

 and from its strong flight and hovering 

 motion is easily mistaken in the uncer- 

 tain light for a humming bird, whence 

 its common name. 



The eggs are laid on woodbine or 

 grapevine where the caterpillars feed 

 till full grown, and then go into the 

 ground to transform, passing the winter 

 in the pupa stage. 



But often when the caterpillar is 

 partly grown a tiny, blackish insect 

 comes flying about it and stings it re- 

 peatedly, depositing an egg with every 



sting, while the caterpillar jerks its 

 head to and fro in the effort to drive 

 away its little tormentor. From the eggs 

 laid, minute worms are hatched which 

 burrow into the substance of the cater- 

 pillar, feeding on its tissues until about 

 a fourth of an inch long, when they 

 work their way out through its skin (a 

 process I have watched through a mi- 

 croscope), and spin the little white co- 

 coons which, standing on end on its 

 back, are so often mistaken for eggs. 

 After about three- days these cocoons 

 open by a lid at the top and out comes a 

 swarm of pert little Microgaster flies 

 ready to attack the nearest sphinx cat- 

 erpillar, and so help to hold in check 

 a species which might otherwise strip 

 and destroy our vines. For the cater- 

 pillar, though a voracious feeder, finds 

 itself so weakened by providing nour- 

 ishment for its uninvited guests, that 

 it usually shrivels and dies without 

 forming a pupa, or at least dies in that 

 stage without becoming a perfect insect. 

 . Emklie A. Salisbury. 



152 



