212 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
stage about fourteen days before the Georgia 
yucca (Yucca recurvifolia) begins to bloom, and 
emerges from its temporary tomb as the flowers 
expand. But it is probable that our average 
winters are too severe for a transplanted southern 
family, and that most of the Pronuba yuccasella 
larve in our gardens freeze with the freezing 
soil, and thus perish untimely. Some few, how- 
ever, survive the winter evidently and make use 
of the yucca blossoms as their mother did before 
them, for in most seasons we will find a few cap- 
sules full-grown and symmetrically formed, but 
with holes in them. 
And so wounded and marred, the flowers have 
fulfilled the purpose of their lives, and attained a 
development which they might not otherwise have 
reached. 
Occasionally one finds a perfectly-developed cap- 
sule which is not pierced, showing that the yucca 
receives visits, few and far between, from some 
nocturnal guest which fertilizes the blossoms with- 
out marring them. But in many seasons no effi- 
cient callers come to the flowers and no capsules 
form at all. 
Many of the white Japan lilies are likewise dis- 
appointed, so large a proportion of them, in fact, 
