CHAPTER IX 

 THE CATERPILLAR AND THE MOTH 



The Life of a Caterpillar 



It is one of those bleak days of early spring that so often 

 follow a period of warmth and sunshine, when living things 

 seem led to believe the fine weather has come to stay. 



Out in the woods a band of little caterpillars is clinging 

 to the surface of something that appears to be an oval 

 swelling near the end of a twig on a wild cherry tree 

 (Fig. I43). The tiny creatures, scarce a tenth of an inch 

 in length, sit motionless, benumbed by the cold, many 

 with bodies bent into half circles as if too nearly frozen 

 to straighten out. Probably, however, they are all un- 

 conscious and suffering nothing. Yet, if they were ca- 

 pable of it, thev would be wondering what fate brought 

 them into such a forbidding world. 



But fate in this case was disguised most likely in the 

 warmth of yesterday, which induced the caterpillars to 

 leave the eggs in which they had safely passed the winter. 

 The empty eggshells are inside the spindle-shaped thing 

 that looks so like a swelling of the twig, for in fact this is 

 merely a protective covering over a mass of eggs glued 

 fast to the bark. The surface of the covering is perfor- 

 ated by many little holes from which the caterpillars 

 emerged, and is swathed in a network of fine silk threads 

 which the caterpillars spun over it to give themselves a 

 surer footing and one they might cling to unconsciously 

 in the event of adverse weather, such as that which makes 

 them helpless now. When nature designs any creature 



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