These varied colors show little, however, on the tree, for the leaves of fruit trees, especially, quickly assume a yellow tint, and are streaked and spotted. Caterpillars protect themselves in many ways; some make a tent of a leaf near their feeding ground, turning over an edge under which they creep, or weaving the different corners of the leaf closely together with silken threads. Even the petals of a blossom may be secured by a filmy web. If the caterpillar must spend the winter as a caterpillar, it makes of the leaf a winter-house, which it covers with wood-colored silk, and weaves the thread securely to the skin. These nests resemble closely the buds of the tree.

After the caterpillar stage of humiliation and danger, comes the strange period of sleep or seeming death, when the cocoon or chrysalid appears. The name pupa or babe is also used, from the likeness to an infant in swaddling bands. The caterpillar was always liable to curious fits of drowsiness or stupor; this stage of the pupa is a prolonged stupor, and it prepares for it by rolling off the garment of skin, and leaving it underfoot in the silken shroud or cell. Sometimes it sleeps in the earth, sometimes in a rock crevice, sometimes hangs like our Troilus looped up by a thread to a tree.

The case has knobs or horns to protect the sleeper when the wind blows it against anything. It is sensitive to light, and swings towards or from it, according to need. At last comes the resurrection. From a narrow slit emerges a crumpled, wrinkled thing. If the struggles are long, dare not aid even by a touch! The butterfly is of such delicate texture that outside help means mutilation. Let it alone. Soon are the wings smoothed — I saw one hang himself up, and lengthen and lengthen, until he was about twice as long as at first — then he spreads them in flight, a glorious and joyous creature of the sunshine! He likes companions, and quickly will he find himself greeted by a Jason or splendid Ajax, or encounter a flock of his own kind, with whom he may feast by roadside puddle or beds of opening flowers.

Marvelous care is shown in the provision for the awakening from its long slumber. The threads are woven so loosely near the place of opening that they are easily broken, even in his first feebleness. The old garment, rolled in a heap at his feet, cannot impede or entangle him. He is now the imago "image in full of his species," — and, like the fairy, Ariel, he will follow summer as it flies, and swing "under the blossom that hangs on the bough" — an airy spirit of joy!