50 A lOUIl KOUND MY GAKDEN. 



leaves of the lily which it has eaten issue from its body almost 

 without alteration, as if they had been crushed in a mortar. 

 By a particular disposition of its body, this paste of leaves falls 

 upon it, and forms for it a house, or a cuirass, which conceals 

 it entirely. There comes, however, a day which brings other 

 cares. Spring, and its season, will soon return. It is pleasing 

 neither in form nor colour. It ceases to eat, shakes its strange 

 vestment, walks about in an agitated manner, descends and 

 buries itself in the earth. Some months after, it comes out 

 shining, lustrous, as brilliant as you now see it, richly clothed 

 in the most beautiful gloss of China. Full of confidence in 

 themselves, the males and females seek each other, and soon 

 meet. Then the males die. The females have still something 

 to do : they lay their eggs — ^which at first are of a reddish 

 colour, but afterwards brown — and fasten them to the under- 

 side of the leaves of the lily; then they, in their turn, die. 

 When born, their children will find abundance of the food 

 that is necessaiy for them. 



What 1 already withered leaves ! I stoop to pick up these 

 three or four dead ones. The leaves move, and — Sj away ! 

 But there is no wind to carry them away thus. These leaves 

 are a moth,* to which nature has given the form, the colour, 

 the disposition, the perfect figure, of three or four dried 

 leaves, with their shades and their fibres. Under its first 

 form, it is a pretty large caterpillar, of a dark colour, grey and 

 brown, with brown hairs, and a fleshy brown horn at the 

 extremity of its body. 



Apropos of caterpillars, Pliny says that the Romans ate a 

 sort of large white worm,t found in the trunks of old oak- 

 trees ; and that they formed a very highly esteemed dish. 

 They were fattened for some time on meal before they were 

 served up to the sumptuous tables of the wealthy Romans. 

 This must have been a horrible raffoui — if, by-the-bye, people 

 who, like you and me, eat oysters, ha.\e any right to deem 

 anything disgusting. 



Here is a caterpillar which seems to have set out on its 



* Gastropacha quereifolia. — Ed. 



t Probably the larva of the Goat-moth, {Comus ligniferda,) or the Stag-beetle, 



