376 Next to the Ground 



a hollow honey-sucking beak as long as your 

 little finger, prominent eyes, a thick black 

 velvety body, and two rows of gorgeous 

 orange spots down either side. The children 

 called it a tobacco-fly, and waged war on it 

 with might and main. 



The war was singular in that there was 

 reason, even a color of justice, back of it. 

 Tobacco-worms are so much the pest of to- 

 bacco fields, if once they get beyond control 

 in a week they can bring the whole year's 

 crop to naught. They are hatched from 

 little clear white eggs, which the tobacco-fly 

 lays numerously on the broad leaves. At 

 first they are no bigger than a cambric needle. 

 Notwithstanding, they quickly manage to eat 

 a passway through the leaf, and shelter them- 

 selves from the sun under its under side. 

 At a day old they have, maybe, made a hole 

 the size of your little finger tip. At a week 

 old they are as big as the finger itself, and 

 quite capable of devouring half a leaf in 

 twenty-four hours. Now since a tobacco 

 plant has but eight leaves or ten at the most, 

 and may have from two to one hundred 

 worms upon those leaves, it becomes evident 

 that here is a struggle — with the chances 

 favoring the survival of the unfittest, that is 

 to say, the worms. 



Worms are what make eternal vigilance 



