Ugh! The ugly worm! Crush it! Wait a moment, listen, while I tell you
a more excellent way. Notice on what your worm is feeding; take a
branch of it home and place it in a bottle of water with the worm on
it; then place the bottle with its contents in a large box, fastening
a wire securely over the box, to prevent the escape; then watch your
worm. Perhaps your worm will be the one so often found on the milkweed
(_asclepias_) with black and yellow stripes around his body, two little
horns in front on his head and one at the tail. If you keep him well
supplied with fresh leaves, in a short time he will eat all he wishes
and then, and not until then, will he leave the plant on which he is
feeding and travel many a long journey up and down and all around the
box, until you may imagine he has gone crazy from his confinement; but
that is not the case, as you will soon see. When he finds just the
right place, he will remain quite still to all appearances, but really
he is very busy with his bobbin of silk and glue bottle weaving a small
silken mat and fastening it very securely to the top of the box, and
the next thing you will see him hanging by his tail from this mat,
with his head recurved. Watch him and you will notice that he makes
little jerky motions. For about twenty-four hours he remains in that
same position, when suddenly he drops down his head so that he hangs
straight down; now don't leave him for a moment, for very soon after
taking that position, his black and yellow striped coat begins to split
open, right between those two little black horns on the head, as evenly
as though cut with a sharp knife and a pale green globular object comes
into sight. With a few contortions of the body the little fellow pushes
up his old coat, folding each stripe, just as Japanese lanterns fold
up, then with a dexterous movement he fastens the end of his beautiful
green chrysalis to the mat, dropping his old clothes, so closely
compacted together that you would hardly recognize them. Now for two
hours he exercises by little shrugs until the beautiful green chrysalis
hangs complete, with gold band and pure gold spots, the most beautiful
chrysalis I ever saw. Everyone exclaims, "How beautiful!" and wonders
how an ugly worm could so transform itself into a thing of beauty.
For ten days we can see no change in the looks of this chrysalis; then
it grows darker and darker until you can distinguish the veins on the
wings of the future butterfly. Then this little fellow, tired of his
close quarters, opens the door of his beautiful chrysalis and creeps
out, clinging fast to the empty nest. O, what tiny wings! But as you
watch they dry out and lengthen to three times their first size and you
behold the beautiful large Viceroy--orange-red wings with black lines
along the nervures and a row of white spots along the outer margin, his
black body beautifully spotted with white.
Or perhaps you may find, on the carrots in your garden, a worm with
black and green stripes around his body, the black stripe being
decorated with yellow spots. He will spin a long silken mat the length
of his body and to that mat fasten a swing to hang around his body,
so that by using a little glue at the end of his body the swing will
hold his chrysalis in place. This chrysalis is not as beautiful as the
Viceroy, but very interesting in its odd shape and in its development
and will well repay all the interest taken in it. Perhaps you may
be surprised by not seeing a beautiful butterfly emerge from your
chrysalis, but instead an Ichneumon fly, for often the Ichneumon fly
deposits her egg in the caterpillar's back, and he can not say her
nay; after he is nicely settled in his chrysalis this egg hatches and
develops rapidly, needing so much food that nothing is left of the
poor caterpillar or worm, but the fly prospers and soon comes forth
full-grown, from a round hole which he makes in the side of the
chrysalis.
Each variety of worm and caterpillar will reward you with a different
chrysalis or cocoon. If you are not sure of your worm place a box of
dirt in your box, for some worms go into the dirt to make the great
change. After watching these changes you, too, will say: "Don't crush
the worms! For are they not a symbol of our own death and resurrection
when we shall awake in His glorious likeness?"