LEAF AND TENDRIL 



its wings a chance to unfold before the air dried 

 them. I thrust a small twig in its way, which it 

 instantly seized upon. I lifted it gently, carried it 

 to drier ground, and fixed the stick in the fork of a 

 tree, so that the moth hung free a few feet from the 

 ground. Its body was distended neariy to the size 

 of one's little finger, and surmounted by wings that 

 were so crumpled and stubby that they seemed 

 quite rudimentary. The creature evidently knew 

 what it wanted, and knew the importance of haste. 

 Instantly these rude, stubby wings began to grow. 

 It was a slow process, but one could see the change 

 from minute to minute. As the wings expanded, 

 the body contracted. By some kind of pumping 

 arrangement air was being forced from a reservoir 

 in the one into the tubes of the other. The wings 

 were not really growing, as they at first seemed to 

 be, but they were unfolding and expanding under 

 this pneumatic pressure from the body. In the 

 course of about half an hour the process was com- 

 pleted, and the winged creature hung there in all 

 its full-fledged beauty. Its color was checked black 

 and white like a loon's back, but its name I know 

 not. My chief interest in it, aside from the interest 

 we feel in any new form of life, arose from the crea- 

 ture's extreme anxiety to reach a perch where it 

 could unfold its wings. A little delay would doubt- 

 less have been fatal to it. I wonder how many hu- 

 man geniuses are hatched whose wings are blighted 

 16 



