“Well, you do now. We hibernate like many animals.”
“But you must have been eggs in the beginning,” said Ruth. “The oil beetle told me that all insects begin as eggs. And will you please tell me how a butterfly knows the right kind of plant to lay her eggs on? It always seems to be just the one her caterpillars like to eat. She doesn’t eat it herself.”
“Of course not,” answered one of the mourning cloaks. “You need but look at out tongues to see that we eat only honey. I can’t answer your question, for none of us knows. Something tells us the proper plant for our eggs. We lay them there without hesitation, and we lay a great many. This is necessary, for one never knows what may happen. Most of them may make a meal for something before they even hatch into caterpillars, and if some miss this fate, and do hatch, there are any number of birds, and their enemies, who like nothing so well as a fat, juicy caterpillar for dinner. Then if that danger is escaped, there are the birds again, and other hungry things, all anxious to get a taste of the butterfly. So you can understand that in a life so full of accidents it is important to have many eggs to begin with.”
“Yes,” said Ruth, “but——”
She didn’t finish, for just then she put her hand on what she thought was a leaf, and, much to her surprise, she found that it was alive.
CHAPTER XIV
REAL FAIRIES
or the possible glory that underlies
The passing phase of the meanest things.
Mrs. Whitney.