152 
LITTLE FOLKS 
A FUNNY LITTLE LOG HOUSE. 
Very little it was, — not an inch long! It looked more like a 
tiny bundle of twigs ; but there it was, a genuine house, regularly 
built and stuck together, lined with silk, and the owner shut up in 
it like a prisoner. 
I found it in the woods one day, and you can find 
them, too, not only log houses, but tiny mansions of stone 
and straw. That is, if your eyes are sharp. You might 
walk over a whole village of these droll atoms of houses 
and never see one, if you were not very careful. 
The little fellows who build such curious houses for 
themselves, belong to a family that I'm afraid you don't 
like very well, — the Caterpillar family. But, perhaps, 
you'll like them better when you know more about them. 
Of course, you know that all the members of this 
family, after crawling around the world as Caterpillars, be- 
come at last gay, beautiful Butterflies. But, perhaps you 
don't know that each one of them has to make for itself a house, 
where it can shut the door, and be safe from its enemies, while the 
wonderful change happens to it. 
One little fellow, a black, prickly Caterpillar, who blossoms out 
into the Tortoise-shell Butterfly, takes a funny way to build his 
house. The first thing he does is to put himself into a position 
where you think he couldn't do any thing, — he hangs himself up 
by his last legs, with his head down, of course. 
Here he is all hung up. How would you go to work 
to build a house hung up by your heels to a tree ? 
I'll tell you how he does. In the first place — to get 
a good hold, so that no wind will blow him off — he spins 
silk threads, like spider webs, around a twig, till he makes 
a sort of a loose network sack. His legs are armed with 
hooks, so when the network is done, he just hooks his 
last pair of legs on to it, and lets his body hang down. 
Then a very droll thing happens. Before he builds 
his house, he wants to get rid of the old Caterpillar skin. 
I suppose you know that this family change their skin as 
easily as we do our coats and dresses ! 
Well, this prickly gentleman, after hanging awhile, 
gets uneasy, wriggles about, and finally splits open the back of his 
