"Yes," he said. "I am investigating several thousand small caterpillars which are feeding on the scrub-palmetto."
"Is that your business?"
"Exactly. If you will remain very still for a moment and listen very intently you can hear the[37] noise which these caterpillars make while they are eating."
She thought of the Chihuahua, and it occurred to her that she had rather tired of seeing things eat. However, except in Europe, she had never heard things eat. So she listened.
He said: "These caterpillars are in their third moult—that is, they have changed their skin three times since emerging from the egg—and are now busily chewing the immature fruit of the scrub-palmetto. You can hear them very plainly."
She sat silent, spellbound; and presently in the woodland stillness, all around her she heard the delicate and continuous sound—the steady, sustained noise of thousands of tiny jaws, all crunching, all busily working together. And when she realized what the elfin rustle really meant, she turned her delighted and grateful eyes on Jones. And the beauty of them made him exceedingly thoughtful.
"Will you explain to me," she whispered, "why you are studying these caterpillars, Mr. Jones?"
"Because they are spreading out over the forests. Until recently this particular species of caterpillar, and the pretty little moth into which it ultimately turns, were entirely confined to a[38] narrow strip of jungle, only a few miles long, lying on the Halifax River. Nowhere else in all the world could these little creatures be found. But recently they have been reported from the Dead Lake country. So the Smithsonian Institution sent me down here to study them, and find out whither they were spreading, and whether any natural parasitic enemies had yet appeared to check them."
She gazed at him, fascinated.
"Have any appeared?" she asked, under her breath.