LEAF AND TENDRIL 



gathering his harvest. He would seize a nut, give 

 it a twist, when down it would come; then he 

 would dart to another and another. Farther along 

 I found where he had covered the ground with 

 chestnut burs; he could not wait for the frost and the 

 winds; did he know that the burs would dry and 

 open upon the ground, and that the bitter covering 

 of the butternuts would soon fall away from the nut ? 

 There are three things that perhaps happen 

 near me each season that I have never yet seen — 

 the toad casting its skin, the snake swallowing its 

 young, and the larvae of the moth and butterfly 

 constructing their shrouds. It is a mooted question 

 whether or not the snake does swallow its young, 

 but if there is no other good reason for it, may they 

 not retreat into their mother's stomach to feed? 

 How else are they to be nourished ? That the moth 

 larva can weave its own cocoon and attach it to a 

 twig seems more incredible. Yesterday, in my walk, 

 I found a firm, silver-gray cocoon, about two inches 

 long and shaped like an Egyptian mummy (prob- 

 ably Promethea), suspended from a branch of a bush 

 by a narrow, stout ribbon twice as long as itself. 

 The fastening was woven around the limb, upon 

 which it turned as if it grew there. I would have 

 given something to have seen the creature perform 

 this feat, and then incase itself so snugly in the 

 silken shroud at the end of this tether. By swinging 

 free, its firm, compact case was in no danger from 

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