A LITTLE NOMAD 35 



While watching him spin, I mused on his history as 

 revealed in its earlier chapters by that truly great 

 scientist, Dr. Fitch, and added to in its later chapters 

 by our own Dr. Lintner, — two men of whom New York 

 is so justly proud. This history was as follows : Last 

 May a tiny moth {Incurvaria acerifoliella) sought out 

 this maple sapling; she was a beautiful little creature 

 with a wing expanse of a little more than a half inch; 

 her front wings and thorax were steel-blue, and her 

 hind wings and abdomen were pale, smoky brown ; 

 these hind wings were bordered with a wide, fine 

 fringe ; across both sets of wings glinted and gleamed 

 a purple iridescence like that on the surface of a bit 

 of mother-of-pearl. On her head, between her antennae, 

 she wore a little cap of orange feathers, this color com- 

 bination of orange and steel-blue proving her to be 

 a moth of fine discrimination in the matter of dress. 

 This pretty mother moth laid an egg upon the leaf 

 which I held in my hand ; from that egg hatched my 

 wee caterpillar, and began life, I suspect, as a true leaf- 

 miner. However, this is a guess of my own, inspired 

 by the appearance of the leaf. Anyway, he did not 

 remain a miner long, but soon cut out a bit of the leaf 

 and pulled it over him and pegged it down ; beneath it 

 he pastured on the green leaf-tissues in safety, and in 

 this retreat he shed his skin. With added growth came 



