NOT GOOD TO EAT
Have you never wondered at the temerity with which certain of these slow-moving, helpless creatures expose themselves to the attacks of their enemies? In a world so full of hungry, winged beings it does seem strange, and when the markings are black and white or some such striking color in contrast with the leaves or bark the temerity seems even more extraordinary, until one learns the simple fact—these creatures are not very good to eat.
Not good enough to eat! Supposing that the fly and the mosquito were equipped with some flavor distasteful to the insectivorous birds; if cattle were not good to eat, nor sheep, nor hogs, nor any living, breathing things, what a change there would be in a world like ours! And yet to chemists there is very little difference between some compounds that are good to eat and others that are deadly poison, no greater than that between the poison bitter almond and the sweet one of our dinner table.
One cannot help but wonder why it is that when the border-land twixt food and poison is so narrow in the chemistry of the living cell that every creature has not equipped itself with prussic acid enough to preserve itself from its enemies.
While this protection holds good against many predaceous creatures, there are various birds and even snakes that have found this particular caterpillar not too bad to eat.
A HAIRY SPECTACLE
(Euchætes egle, Dru.)