26 
Nature Portraits 
FIG. I . LARVAE FEEDING. 
FIG. 2. LARVA HANGING, JUST BEFORE CHANGING 
TO CHRYSALID. 
By L. W. Brownell. 
FIG. 3 . CHRYSALID BEGINNING TO EMERGE 
FROM SKIN. 
It is instructive to note the increasing 
love for wild animals and plants as a 
country grows old and mature. This is 
particularly well illustrated in plants. In 
pioneer times there are too many plants. 
The effort is to get rid of them. The 
forest is razed and the roadsides are 
cleaned. The pioneer is satisfied with 
things in the gross. If he plants at all, 
he usually plants things exotic or strange 
to the neighborhood. The woman 
grows a geranium or fuchsia in a tin can, 
and now and then makes a flower-bed in 
the front yard; but the man is likely to 
think such things beneath him. It a 
man has flowers at all, he must have 
something that will till the eye. Sun- 
flowers are satisfying. 
But the second and third generations 
begin to plant forests and to allow the 
roadsides to grow wild at intervals. Peo- 
ple come to be satisfied with their com- 
mon surroundings and to derive less 
pleasure from objects merely because they 
are unlike their surroundings. Choice 
plants come into the yards here and there, 
and the men of the household begin to 
care for them. The birds and wild ani- 
mals are cherished. Love of books in- 
creases. All this marks the growth of 
the intellectual life. 
America is a land of cut flowers. 
Nowhere does the cut-flower trade assume 
such commanding importance. Churches 
and homes are decorated with them. 
One sees the churches of the Old World 
decorated with plants in pots or tubs. 
The Englishman or the German loves to 
