A strong September wind is now blowing, and, this very day, has cast in upon us a beautiful reddish-coloured caterpillar. Though she had not come of her own accord, but in spite of herself, we felt that we ought to respect misfortune. We did not know from what plant she had been torn, but supposed from her motions that she had been carried away at the moment she had begun to spin. We presented her with a variety of leaves; but none of them pleased her taste. She moved to and fro, displaying an extraordinary agitation. We supposed she wished to find rest upon a branch, but the rain fell in torrents. As many caterpillars and larvæ work underground, we brought it some earth. But this, too, was useless. Thinking she might like a web at a time when she was engaged in weaving, we placed her on the lace-work of a cushion which lay in the window; but the lace was cold and coarse, and did not please her. Moreover, the wind, the little wind which entered, would have cruelly frozen her during a whole winter. Finally, by a feminine marvel of intuition, we concluded that, since she was about to weave silk, she would like the silk-velvet lining of our microscope.
Plainly, it was the very thing she herself would have chosen. Installed in the evening, by the morning she had made herself at home in this soft, warm, and sheltered place. She had already spun, and hastily extended her threads to right and left, as if fearing she might be disturbed. Then, during the day, her work having been respected, she saw that she had miscalculated her measurements, and that her cocoon was too short; she destroyed a third of it, to resume the fabric from that point on better proportions.
Behold, then, microscope, and scalpel, and all our instruments expelled. What could we do? The confiding animal had taken up a position at our fireside, and would not withdraw from it. Life had driven out Science. Grave study, wait! for awhile thou art adjourned. During the winter we respected the sleep of the chrysalis.
