Sometimes by too close and confining study of things pertaining to the
genus _Homo_, we perchance find ourselves complacently wondering if we
have not solved almost all the problems of this little whirling sphere of
water and earth. Our minds turn to the ultra questions of atoms and ions
and rays and our eyes strain restlessly upward toward our nearest planet
neighbour, in half admission that we must soon take up the study of Mars
from sheer lack of earthly conquest.
If so minded, hie you to the nearest grove and, digging down through the
mid-winter's snow, bring home a spadeful of leaf-mould. Examine it
carefully with hand-lens and microscope, and then prophesy what warmth and
light will bring forth. "Watch the unfolding life of plant and animal, and
then come from your planet-yearning back to earth, with a humbleness born
of a realisation of our vast ignorance of the commonest things about us."
Though the immediate mysteries of the seed and the egg baffle us, yet the
most casual lover of God's out-of-doors may hopefully attempt to solve the
question of some of the winter homes of insects. Think of the thousands
upon thousands of eggs and pupae which are hidden in every grove; what
catacombs of bug mummies yonder log conceals,--mummies whose resurrection
will be brought about by the alchemy of thawing sunbeams. Follow out the
suggestion hinted at above and place a handkerchief full of frozen mould
or decayed wood in a white dish, and the tiny universe which will
gradually unfold before you will provide many hours of interest. But
remember your responsibilities in so doing, and do not let the tiny plant
germs languish and die for want of water, or the feeble, newly-hatched
insects perish from cold or lack a bit of scraped meat.
Cocoons are another never-ending source of delight. If you think that
there are no unsolved problems of the commonest insect life around us, say
why it is that the moths and millers pass the winter wrapped in swaddling
clothes of densest textures, roll upon roll of silken coverlets; while our
delicate butterflies hang uncovered, suspended only by a single loop of
silk, exposed to the cold blast of every northern gale? Why do the
caterpillars of our giant moths--the mythologically named Cecropia,
Polyphemus, Luna, and Prometheus--show such individuality in the position
which they choose for their temporary shrouds? Protection and concealment
are the watchwords held to in each case, but how differently they are
achieved!
Cecropia--that beauty whose wings, fully six inches across, will flap
gracefully through the summer twilight--weaves about himself a half oval
mound, along some stem or tree-trunk, and becomes a mere excrescence--the
veriest unedible thing a bird may spy. Polyphemus wraps miles of finest
silk about his green worm-form (how, even though we watch him do it, we
can only guess); weaving in all the surrounding leaves he can reach. This,
of course, before the frosts come, but when the leaves at last shrivel,
loosen, and their petioles break, it is merely a larger brown nut than
usual that falls to the ground, the kernel of which will sprout next June
and blossom into the big moth of delicate fawn tints, feathery horned,
with those strange isinglass windows in his hind wings.
Luna--the weird, beautiful moon-moth, whose pale green hues and long
graceful streamers make us realise how much beauty we miss if we neglect
the night life of summer--when clad in her temporary shroud of silk,
sometimes falls to the ground, or again the cocoon remains in the tree or
bush where it was spun.
But Prometheus, the smallest of the quartet, has a way all his own. The
elongated cocoon, looking like a silken finger, is woven about a leaf of
sassafras. Even the long stem of the leaf is silk-girdled, and a strong
band is looped about the twig to which the leaf is attached. Here, when
all the leaves fall, he hangs, the plaything of every breeze, attracting
the attention of all the hungry birds. But little does Prometheus care.
Sparrows may hover about him and peck in vain; chickadees may clutch the
dangling finger and pound with all their tiny might. Prometheus is
"bound," indeed, and merely swings the faster, up and down, from side to
side.
It is interesting to note that when two Prometheus cocoons, fastened upon
their twigs, were suspended in a large cageful of native birds, it took a
healthy chickadee just three days of hard pounding and unravelling to
force a way through the silken envelopes to the chrysalids within. Such
long continued and persistent labour for so comparatively small a morsel
of food would not be profitable or even possible out-of-doors in winter.
The bird would starve to death while forcing its way through the
protecting silk.
These are only four of the many hundreds of cocoons, from the silken
shrouds on the topmost branches to the jugnecked chrysalis of a sphinx
moth--offering us the riddle of a winter's shelter buried in the cold,
dark earth.
Is everything frozen tight? Has Nature's frost mortar cemented every stone
in its bed? Then cut off the solid cups of the pitcher plants, and see
what insects formed the last meal of these strange growths,--ants, flies,
bugs, encased in ice like the fossil insects caught in the amber sap which
flowed so many thousands of years ago.
When the fierce northwestern blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep;
Woe and want thou canst outsleep.
Emerson.