The first visitor that you welcome will probably be a little woolly-bear, a brown and black caterpillar that you see so often in your autumn walks ([Fig. 343]). He is one of my favorite insect friends, and I really like to have him snuggle up in a furry ball in my hand. You will find woolly-bear a very restless little creature. You never know what he is going to do next. He may spin a cocoon this fall or "he may curl up like a woodchuck," as Uncle John says, and sleep until spring. Then, if all goes well, he will spin his cocoon and come out an Isabella tiger-moth ([Fig. 344]). No matter how fast woolly-bear may be hurrying along the highway when you meet him, put him into the terrarium, for you will find that he is a most entertaining little fellow.
If you have an insect net, sweep it among shrubs and weeds. I am hoping that when you look into it you will find "golden-eyes" or the lace-winged-fly. When you see the pretty little green creature you will wonder that her children can be called aphis-lions, for they are not at all like their mother ([Fig. 345]); but when you have watched them among the aphids or plant-lice, you will understand how they have earned their name. They have very long jaws and very large appetites.
No one knows better than golden-eyes what her children are capable of doing when on a foraging tour. For this reason she places her eggs high on silken stalks ([Fig. 345]). If she laid them on the leaf close together, the first aphis-lion hatched would not give the other members of his family a chance to open their eyes, nor to know how pleasant it is to live on a green leaf. As it is he walks down the silken stalk and finds himself among the aphids. Then, when he has proved himself the gardener's friend by devouring a great many of the small green insects, he spins a pearly white cocoon and out of this comes a lace-winged-fly with glistening golden eyes. If one of these dainty creatures comes to live in your terrarium, you may notice some day that it has a disagreeable odor. This is a characteristic that many insects possess, and owing to it the birds do not like to eat them.
Fig. 342. An insect cage.
There is another insect out in the garden that ought to be an inmate of every terrarium this fall, the green cabbage-worm. Some Junior gardeners will object to calling this a friendly little neighbor, but you will find that he will teach you many new things, in this way proving himself friendly to you as a naturalist. You must remember that these green caterpillars did not know that you had planted the garden in which they worked destruction. They did not know that you wanted to send the very best cabbage to the State fair. They knew only that when they opened their eyes they were on a green leaf and it was good to eat.
Probably you will find the eggs of the cabbage butterfly on the under side of the leaves. Then you can feed the young caterpillars when they hatch. They will, of course, prefer cabbage leaves. If you miss them some day, search in the terrarium for the chrysalids into which they have changed. These chrysalids sometimes imitate the color of the support from which they hang, and you may have difficulty in finding them. For this reason it may be well to keep one of the caterpillars under a lamp chimney, the top of which has been covered with mosquito netting ([Fig. 342]), so that you may know how the chrysalids look.
The cabbage butterflies are familiar to most boys and girls; yet as they come out of the chrysalid state in your terrarium, you will be able to observe them more closely. Notice that the wings are dull white on the upper sides, while on the under side the apex of the fore wings and the entire surface of the hind wings are pale lemon yellow. In the female you will find that there are two black spots besides the tip on each of the fore wings, and in the male there is but one.
Now that I have put you in the way to find a few members of the insect world for your terrarium, I am going to ask you to think about some other outdoor-folk that naturalists learn to like.
Have you ever turned over stones or broken off pieces of an old stump in the woods or along the bank of a stream? If so, you may have seen salamanders ("lizards") making their escape as quickly as possible. If you can get a few for your terrarium you will learn to like them, for they are harmless and have very interesting ways. Do not catch them by their tails as they try to get away, or you may find that you have captured the tails but lost the salamanders.