IV
You ought to go “cocooning” this fall—to sharpen your eyes. But do not go often; for once you begin to look for cocoons, you are in danger of seeing nothing else—except brown leaves. And how many brown leaves, that look like cocoons, there are! They tease you to vexation. But a day now and then “cocooning” will do you no harm; indeed, it will cultivate your habit of concentration and close seeing as will no other kind of hunting I know.
Bring home with you the big brown silky cocoons of cecropia—the largest cocoon you will find, lashed all along its length to its twig, and usually near the ground. Look on the black cherry, the barberry, sassafras, and roadside and garden trees for the harder, whiter cocoon of the promethea moth. This hangs by its tip, because the caterpillar has begun his house by using the leaf, spinning it into the cocoon as part of its walls, much as does the wretched “brown-tail.” The gray cocoons, or rather nests, of this “brown-tail” moth you must bring home to burn, for they are one of our greatest pests. You will find them full of tiny caterpillars as you tear them open.
Bring home your collection and, with the help of such a book as “Moths and Butterflies” by Mary C. Dickerson, identify them and hang them up for their “coming out” in the spring.