Atalapha, a Winged Brownie 
and tongue, every part was dressed and licked as 
carefully as a cat might dress her coat. And last 
his wings are rubbed and massaged inside and out. 
He would lick and pull at the membrane, and 
stretch it over his head till every part was cleared 
of every speck of dust, and the fur slick and clean 
and fluffy soft. 
He knew how to take the noisy June-bug in the 
scoop net; how to snap the small but juicy May- 
flies and mosquitoes in his mouth and cut their 
wings with his side teeth. He could seize, strip, 
pluck, bone, and eat a noctua or a snowy menas 
without changing his line of flight. He knew that 
a polopias was a hardshell and a stinger to be let 
alone; some young Bats have lost their lives 
through not knowing what a deadly creature is 
this steel-blue mud-wasp. He knew that the 
woolly luna, the fluffy samia, with her Owl-eyed 
wings, or the blazing yellow basilona cannot be 
scooped, but must be struck from above and de- 
winged. So also with the lightning hawkmoth, | 
the royal citheronia, and the giant cecropia, they “Ay 
hardest of all to take, the choicest food in the air. 
He learned to keep away from the surface of the ¢ , 
Beaver pond when the great trout were jumping, 
and he had discovered the wonderful treat that 
one may eat hovering in front of a high honey- | 4; 
157 lune 
