230 



THE HAWTHORN. 



But easy as tliey find it to provide themselves with 

 food and lodgings they are not exempt from mis- 

 fortune. Birds and insects destroy them : and 

 many perish from unfavourable weather. The 

 family thus rapidly dwindles away to twenty or 

 thirty, so that a single shoot generally furnishes 

 them with sufficient food for the summer. Early 

 in autumn they seem to be endowed with a greater 

 amount of forethought ; nipping frosts are at 

 hand, which their delicate structure is not pre- 

 pared to encounter ; cold wintry blasts are about 

 to set in, which, unless they make a strenuous 

 efi'ort to prevent it, vdW whirl away both them- 

 selves and their habitations. In September, there- 

 fore, they cease eating, and set about preparing 

 a winter's habitation. They bend one leaf over 

 another, bring the edges close together and unite 

 them ^\dth webs, covering the chamber thus formed 

 within with a fine web, so as only to leave them- 

 selves a small space to enter at. They aiso unite 

 the leaf-stalk which they have prepared for their 

 nest with the shoot, so that neither wind nor rain 

 can detach it, and, this operation completed, they 

 all return to the nest, and secure it on all sides 

 from wet and cold. So far, all their proceedings 

 have been conducive to the public good ; now, 

 hovrever, private comfort is to be attended to : 

 each caterpillar selects a place in the chamber, in 

 which to pass the dreary months of winter, and 

 envelopes himself in a silken web which defies the 

 action of the severest weather. 



New life and new instinct return with the first 

 warm days of spring. The sunshine entices a 

 few of the caterpillars out of their nest ; but, as 

 if doubtful whether they can as yet duly supply 



