THE STRANGE STORY OF MISS CECROPIA. 



Every one at all familiar with the 

 great families of the earth knows that 

 mine, the Moths, have always been fa- 

 mous for their beauty and elegance, and 

 for their remarkable life history. Of 

 the former qualification for notoriety, 

 modesty forbids me to speak what fam- 

 ily pride might dictate. The latter trait 

 is, of course, shared by all insects ; only 

 it is very pronounced in us. Each one 

 literally lives the lives of three distinct 

 animals before its cycle is complete. As 

 they are so different from each other, 

 you can guess that many strange adven- 

 tures come to us. At each new phase 

 we begin again in a new world with the 

 legacy of our last life to help us. 



But the story of my life and that of 

 my immediate family, I have reason to 

 believe, is unique, even for a Moth. 



Of my parentage I know little. In 

 fact, it seems strange to me, and not at 

 all unfilial, that one should care in the 

 least who one's parents were. Neither 

 do I think it at all reprehensible that 

 my 'father probably never so much as 

 heard of his offspring, and that my 

 mother left us at a tender age without 

 a thought as to our welfare. It is a 

 time-honored custom in our family to 

 let children take the entire care of them- 

 selves ; and though the rate of infant 

 mortality is high, yet in those that sur- 

 vive it develops strong characters. And 

 really, when you come to think of it, 

 how could a young couple look after 

 some three or four hundred youngsters 

 when their own lives extend over but a 

 few days at most? 



While the question of parentage can 

 be dismissed with a few words, the 

 subject of birth-place is extremely im- 

 portant. Indeed, it usually determines 

 at once whether prompt extinction or 

 long life shall be our fate. All that I 

 know of mine was told me by my sec- 

 ond foster-mother, and here begins the 

 remarkable part of my story. For, un- 

 like most of our race, mv subsequent life 

 was passed far away from the place of 

 my birth. And not only have I had a 

 foster-mother, but I have had two! 



I am told, then, bv mv second foster- 



mother, who had the information from 

 my first by letter when I was trans- 

 ferred to her care, that I, together with 

 some scores of my brothers and sisters, 

 began existence on the night of June 5, 

 in a little town in Vermont. It is sur- 

 mised that my mother was held in cap- 

 tivity in a strange place called the 

 "Crawlery," where lived other captives 

 of her kind, of whom you may read in 

 another place. In the records of this 

 house, kept by my first foster-mother, I 

 I^esume will be found a full account of 

 my true mother's career, for she seems 

 to have been a moth of great distinction 

 and to have received marked attention in 

 her Hfetime. We were at this time, I 

 am told, spherical eggs, about the size 

 01 a large pin-head, opaque, pinkish, 

 each with a brown blotch on one side. 

 We wxre probably glued in rows on the 

 upper side of some leaf. 



Shortly after we w^ere ushered into 

 existence, some score of us were put in- 

 to a quill, covered over with cotton, 

 placed in a letter on which was written 

 the first chapter of our lives, and dis- 

 patched by post to a far country. Of 

 that long strange journey with hundreds 

 of packages and letters, over hundreds 

 of miles of country, I have not the faint- 

 est remembrance. Our foster-mother's 

 confidence in our thick shells and our 

 cotton packing was not misplaced. In- 

 deed, this our longest journey was made 

 w^ith far less danger to life and limb than 

 were many subsequent ones in our event- 

 ful history. 



On a bright sunny day thirty-six 

 hours later, we were taken from our 

 close quarters and placed, still on our 

 beds of cotton, in a little tin box. From 

 row on we were in the hands of our 

 rescuer and sole protector, our second 

 foster-mother, and Wisconsin and not 

 Vermont, was destined to be our home. 



But our journeyings were not ended. 

 A few days later we in our tin box were 

 packed up in a leather bag, in company 

 v/ith some near relatives of ours, the 

 Polyphemus Moths, who had traveled 

 the same route as we a few days earlier, 

 but who, I am sorrv to sav, did not sur- 



