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BY THE WAYSIDE 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Published on the tenth of each month except July and . 
Aughst. 
The official organ of the Wisconsin and Illinois Audu¬ 
bon Societies. 
Twenty=five cents per year. Single Copies 6 cents 
All communications should be sent to Miss Edna Ed¬ 
wards, Appleton, Wis. 
An Island Invasion. 
Big ugly spring “worms” were hanging 
thick and unabashed on the slender wil¬ 
low twigs by the landing, someone said. 
Sure enough, anyone could see them 
there, weighing down the branches, seem- 
ingrlv not in the least afraid of enemies. 
And indeed, I could scarcely call myself 
one, for I saw great possibilities inside 
those dusky skins. So I took a few 
“samples” to the cabin to investigate. 
Being a naturalist, I am not afraid of 
crawlers, and every member of our island 
camp is supposed to be going about seek¬ 
ing every fact of natural history that he 
can devour. Each “cat” was nearly two 
inches long ! The spines were in longi¬ 
tudinal rows, black and branched; orange 
red spots adorned the middle of the back. 
They had a familiar look, but I could 
only guess what butterfly secrets they 
contain. I was about to look it up in 
the nature books, but, on second thought, 
concluded to wait and let them tell their 
secrets when thev would. So I confined 
them and next day the final moult had 
taken place. One had escaped and there 
it hung upon my window-case, a dull 
but beautifully shaped spring chrysalis. 
The empty case still hangs there, though 
it is more than a year since that miracle 
took place. 
In about ten days the secret was out; 
there had emerged our familiar Mourn¬ 
ing Cloak butterfly, the rich, velvety, 
dark brown wings fairly livid, set off by 
the yellow borders. It was hard to be¬ 
lieve that they could be guilty of the 
devestation at the landing. But there 
were the rest of the colonv, for most of 
the larvae had not yet pupated; and they 
were still stripping the leaves from the 
willow fringe which was now a sorry 
sight. Willows or butterflies, which 
would we have?—for clearly we could 
not have both. The decision had to be 
made quickly, but I decided that such 
beauty as these crawlers held should first 
be yielded up before thay were sacri¬ 
ficed. I picked off the crawlers carefully, 
all there were left on that clump of wil¬ 
lows, a hundred or more of them, and 
put them in a big box tightly closed. I 
had chosen the critical time. Next 
morning half the number had pupated, 
the delicately shaped chrysalis hanging 
thickly suspended from the cover. In. 
another day the rest had pupated, and 
their shed skins were strewn upon the 
bottom of the box. A few had met with 
untimely deaths in trying to pass this 
critical stage in their metamorphosis. 
What a treasure box! They must be 
disposed of sometime, but how could 
one destrov such wonders? I eased a 
•/ 
tender conscience by sending away to 
friends a dozen or more chrysalis securely 
packed in cotton. Some of these bright¬ 
ened the window of an invalid friend 
and the rest were kept confined in the 
screened porch of another. 
One day in late July the remnant of 
my hundred burst their shells and spread 
their wings; it was a veritable Pandora 
box, and we lifted the lid with caution 
Continued on last page. 
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