1 40 
A NATURALIST on the PROWL. 
The joy of finding caterpillars is prolonged into the 
pleasure of keeping them, and again the same first 
principles must be borne in mind. Your main concern 
must be to see that they are not eaten and have always 
plenty to eat. If you let the leaves get dry and hard 
before you change them, the caterpillar may not die, 
but it will certainly become a stunted butterfly. A cater- 
pillar, like salad, should be grown fast and brought to 
maturity as quickly as possible. And when it prepares to 
pass into the chrysalis state, the ease and safety with which 
it gets over the crisis will depend very much upon how fat 
it is. An unhappy caterpillar, on the point of death by 
starvation, will sometimes save its life by becoming a 
chrysalis, but this is a cruel alternative, an untimely end. 
Eating is the appointed pleasure of its lower life, and it 
is not ripe for a higher state until its skin can no longer 
hold it. Therefore be kind and give it plenty of fresh 
and tender food. Some leaves will keep for a day easily, 
others must be kept in water ; but remember that, if your 
caterpillar can get at the water, he will walk into it and 
stay there till he drowns. This proceeds from ignorance. 
Those kinds which feed on growing rice and are familiar 
with water never do such a thing. 
