BY THE WAYSIDE 
31 
it awhile it flew away with some other 
chimnev swifts. 
%/ 
During the very hot hours in the sum¬ 
mer they don’t fly but sleep in some 
shady place. There are very many in 
the summer and they are about five 
inches long. 
Their nests are made of light twigs or 
stems of leaves, glued together with saliva 
and fastened to some wall and look like 
half a saucer. They lay from four to six 
or 10th of March. Our teacher said we 
should watch for them, so we did. I saw 
six one Sunday when my papa took us 
all out for a ride in the country. A 
phoebe is seven inches in length. He 
catches flies for his food. He is grayish- 
green—his head and body, but his breast 
is white. He builds a nest of moss and 
grass and horse hairs. 
Yours truly, 
Aged 8. Florence A del man. 
THE MILKWEED BUTTERFLY 
white eggs. They have long, scythe¬ 
shaped wings. They are birds of a sootv 
black color and lighter on the throat. 
The bill is quite short. Its tail is differ¬ 
ent from other birds’. The spiny tips of 
the tail feathers help to support the body 
while clinging against a surface just as 
the tail feathers of the woodpecker do. 
Thev do not come to Wisconsin until the 
last of April or the first week in May. 
They live only on insects. They make a 
1 wittering noise as they fly. 
Aged 13. Edna Durdel. 
_ 
j East Dubuque, Ill., April 23, 1908. 
Dear Wayside: 
A phoebe is a very pretty bird, and 
monies back from the South about the 9th 
Metamorphosis of the Milkrteed Butterfly. 
I had often heard of milkweed cater¬ 
pillars turning into butterflies, but never 
had the chance of seeing them, until I 
was out in the country where I saw a 
great many. 
I picked a leaf on which I saw a great 
many eggs. I put it in a box. I watched 
it for about two weeks. When I looked 
at it one day, I noticed that the eggs 
were cracked, and they kept on cracking. 
1 he last time I looked at it there were 
milkweed caterpillars about one-eighth 
of an inch long, and they kept on grow¬ 
ing. 
When full grown the caterpillars were 
green streaked with black and yellow 
and in time turned into chrvsalis, and 
