THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
83 
thraugh which were woven brown leaves 
of grass and daisy stallcs, tiie whole be- 
ing securely fastened to a thorny black- 
berry cane, that fairly bristled with . sav- 
age and vicious-looking thorns, as if to 
afford her protection from harm. Of 
course I was too inexperienced to know 
how beautiful, exquisite, and wonderful 
a creature was enclosed within the warm 
and waterproof wrappings of silk, but 
.sure I was that I had become the pos- 
sessor of one of the secrets of the wonder- 
land of the woods, the fairyland of Na- 
ture. In an instant my aching limbs 
were forgotten, quickly were my feet re- 
leased from the skates, and, on my hands 
ai]d knees, I was closely examining the 
elderberry and blackberry bushes for 
more of these strange objects. My search 
was not in vain, for when I returned 
home I carried with me nine of these 
mysterious creations. 
After supper my strange "finds" of 
the day were spread out on the table, and 
the entire family were called to inspect 
them and decide what they might be. 
One thought they were the nests of some 
variety of giant spider, another that they 
might be the winter quarters of bats, or 
that they were tlie nests of hornets or 
some other equally undesirable insect. 
My big brother, who was studying sur- 
gery, suggested the propriety of dissect- 
ing one of them, and by this means find 
out what sort of an animal lived within. 
""What! cut one of them into pieces and 
destroy it ? Kill it just out of idle curi- 
osity? No, indeed!"! exclaimed, at the 
same time gathering them up hastily, 
fearing he might be tempted to put his 
suggestion into execution. One point 
they were all agreed on, viz., that I had 
better keep them in the hay-loft of the 
barn, and under no consideration in my 
bedroom. Now, you must know that I 
had not the slightest intention of hang- 
ing them up all winter in the cold hay- 
loft, for be it known I had kept in my 
bedroom for many weeks a box that con- 
tained a live garter-snalce, with her ten 
baby garters ; little beauties they were, 
too, ranging from three to four inches in 
length. Gracious! how they could eat 
grasshoppers and May beetles! Now, 
if Nora, our servant-girl, had known 
of this, it would be the last time she 
would enter my room, and I would be 
ordered to make up my own bed and take 
care of my room for all future time to 
come. In this room was a large closet, of 
the top compartment of which I was sup- 
posed to be the entire owner and occu- 
pier, it being so high up that no one cared 
to claim it. Secretly I determined that 
in this closet these silken mysteries 
should be kept. So here all winter long 
they were watched over and guarded with 
jealous care, but instead of nine of them, 
I had increased the number to twenty- 
four, having made several journeys to the 
woods in quest of them. The winter 
months had passed away, and the season 
of bursting buds and tlie return of Na- 
ture's sweet-voiced musicians had come; 
bunches of wild flowers stood on my win- 
dow-sill. Going to bed early was no lon- 
ger the order of the day. So it came to 
pass that on one moonlight night, after 
having retired, I remained awake for a 
time, planning out my Saturday's wood- 
ramble. Happening to cast my eyes to- 
wards the window, through which the 
moonlight was flooding the room, I was 
astonished at beholding what seemed to 
])e hundreds of bals flying ou!sido of the 
window. Was I frightened ? Oh. no. I 
got up, determined to investigate and 
solve this curious phenomenon. Well, 
inside of the room were what appeared to 
be some ten or twelve bats endeavoring to 
make their escape out of the room through 
the window, and outside were some twenty 
' or thirty of the same creatures dashing 
against the window-panes, as if deter- 
i mined to gain an entrance and rescue 
their imprisoned friends. 
I Exactly what to do I did not know. I 
I was afraid to raise the sash, fearing that 
those inside would join their friends out- 
side, and so I would lose all of them. 
With a, scap-net, which fortunately I had 
liangingin my room, I captured one of 
the flying objects, which proved to be a 
variety of the largest and most beauti- 
fully-colored and marked of all butter- 
! flies that I had ever read of or expected 
