NATURE STUDY. 
152 
which are the beginnings of as many little lives. The 
young locusts will come forth from cells in the ground with 
the first warm, dry days of spring. When the earth is 
again spaded for the planting season, or as you rake away 
the leaves in the woods, or take a peep beneath stone or 
decaying log, you may come upon curious mummy-like 
structures, brown and shining; or, swathed in a tough 
outer covering of silk or parchment, similar cases may be 
found attached to dried stalks or twigs of trees. Out of 
these cocoons will come moth, butterfly or beetle, glad 
creatures that are soon to share, for the first time, in “the 
glory of this world of sunshine, love, wings and music.” 
Old fences, a woodpile or shreddy stump will often re¬ 
veal much in the way of egg, larval or adult life. A pleas¬ 
ant recollection conies to mind of finding, on a sunny day 
of last spring, a pretty butterfly in the crevice of an old 
stump in the woods. Though a warm day, the wood was 
still full of frost, and the butterfly had not felt the awak¬ 
ening touch. Its graceful wings of dull chocolate brown 
were still closely folded upright, showing a pale yellow 
band along the margin, but none of the warmer tones and 
blue spots on the upper side. The resemblance of the in¬ 
distinct lines to frost crystals rendered its protection com¬ 
plete. You smile and say, oh! yes! Vanessa antiopa, or 
Mourning Cloak, known also to the children of England as 
the Camberwell Beauty. It not infrequently takes a short 
flight in some sheltered nook, even in winter, as does the 
Compton Tortoise 
At other times the social wasps are to be seen lamely 
crawling about on the side of the house or over the snow, 
and the common little round red and black ladybug makes 
its appearance on the windows, walking carefully up one 
side or running down the other in great haste. 
These are some of the insects that belonged to the fall 
brood and live over till spring, which seems to them, per- 
