"Wee Tim'rous Beasties" Part 8

It was after his fifth and final moult. He was just a shade too light for nature, and the ichneumon has a pretty sense of colour. She buzzed viciously through the foliage, and settled for a moment on his back. She had reckoned without her host. His skin was indeed dangerously bright, but it was sensitive in proportion.

Before she could establish herself, a vicious back-sweep of his horns dislodged her.

Again and again she returned to the attack. Could she but pierce the skin, her paralyzing venom would quickly do its work. Then the murderous task would be easy. Eggs would be laid deep in the wound; grubs would hatch from them, and batten luxuriously on their unwilling host, sapping his strength, but cunningly avoiding his vitals, until they were full-fed. As they turned to pupae he would die, and from caterpillar, or may be chrysalis, there would then issue, in place of gorgeous b.u.t.terfly, a host of dingy hymenoptera. So would the race of ichneumons be preserved.

The little Emperor was fat and well-liking--an ideal _creche_ for young ichneumons; but the little Emperor was very wide-awake.

The fly could find no foothold on him. He flung his armed head backwards to his tail. He pawed the air with six fore feet. He shook himself in paroxysms of fury. The fly cared little for the latter, but the horns were hard and formidable. They covered his whole body with their sweep, and struck with lightning speed.

At sundown she withdrew discomfited; the little Emperor's horns had served him well.

His life was uneventful after this. When he had reached a length of two inches, his growth ceased. He fed less ravenously and less frequently.

Three parts of his time he spent in contemplation of a special leaf. It was hard to tell wherein lay the fascination. He had spun a silken carpet on it. At rare intervals he tore himself away and s.n.a.t.c.hed a hurried meal, but he infallibly returned to its friendly shelter. He rested on its mid-rib, facing the foot-stalk. His body was strongly arched and so compressed that the ridges of its crowded segments recalled the pile of velvet. His head and fore feet scarcely touched the surface. So he made ready for the second change.

For this even the favourite leaf was discarded. He roamed about the tree for days, seeking one that would suit his purpose. At last he found one, hidden in a thick-set cl.u.s.ter. It hung free, but he secured it in such fas.h.i.+on to its stem that a stiff breeze could hardly shake it. He stretched silken ropes from its edges and pa.s.sed them completely round the foot-stalk. Then, on its under surface, he spun a little boss of silk, gripped it with his hind-claspers, and swung with easy confidence head downwards. For three days he hung thus motionless, yet within him there was a lively motion.

From the time he left the egg his life had been a dual one. The eye saw nothing but the outward mask, the caterpillar-form. Within this living vehicle that moved and spun and fed, lived the true b.u.t.terfly--life within life, being within being.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CROWDED SEGMENTS OF HIS BODY RECALLED THE PILE OF VELVET.]

The caterpillar mask had done its work, and having done its work, must die. Yet one can hardly call such dissolution death. As it hung suspended, all the marvellous mechanism which had formed a moving, eating, spinning, sentient being, was absorbed into the chrysalis it covered. Merely the outer empty sh.e.l.l remained.

On the fourth day this sh.e.l.l split cleanly at the tail, and, from the opening, the hind part of the chrysalis emerged. It jerked from side to side, to all appearance aimlessly. Yet there was method in its madness. A side-swing forced it deep into the boss of silk, and, in a moment, the hooks that studded its extremity were fast entangled. The chrysalis had its _point d'appui_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE CHRYSALIS HEAD WERE TWO SHORT-POINTED HORNS.]

Again the old skin cracked, this time behind the neck. The chrysalis head was free. On it were two short, flattened, pointed horns. A jerky movement of the shoulders followed--first expansion, then contraction. At each expansion the old skin slipped a trifle upwards. Turn by turn the segments of the body did their work, until it lay in gathered folds about the tail, just as the pushed-off stocking lies about the ankle.

But even so, the task was not completed. The skin must be got rid of. Its dull white ma.s.s, with dangling skeleton horns, was too conspicuous. Nature had armed the chrysalis with the needful tools, a grip attachment and a set of tiny sharp-edged hooks. The skin was fast entangled in the boss of silk. The chrysalis secured an independent foothold (using as stepping-stone the skin itself), spun itself from side to side, and cut the threads that bound it. It jerked lightly from leaf to leaf, until it reached the ground. The second change was accomplished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLOUR AND FORM COMBINED THEIR SKILFUL MIMICRY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ITS FORM THE FORM OF THE SALLOW-LEAF.]

Outwardly the chrysalis was nothing but an extra leaf. Colour and form combined their skilful mimicry. Its colour was the green of the sallow; its form, the form of the sallow-leaf.

For fifteen days it hung unchanged and motionless. On the sixteenth change was obviously impending. The upper segments had lengthened, the lower segments had darkened. On the twentieth day came the last great change of all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE CHOSE THE LOFTIEST BRANCH OF THE LOFTIEST OAK IN THE FOREST.]

It was a normal July day. Thunder was over the Downs. Now and again great rain-drops struck the sallow. They were few and far between, however. The thunder was content to grumble on the hills, leaving the valley to the suns.h.i.+ne. For all the midday heat the air was laden with moisture. This was at once both good and bad for the little Emperor, good because it made the bursting of his cerement easy, bad because it made the drying of his wings slow.

Still he had no choice in the matter; his time had come, and he must make the best of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITES.]

Barely a minute pa.s.sed between the first yielding of the sh.e.l.l and his complete emergence. He issued head foremost, groping with bewildered legs for something to cling to. He struck the only thing within his reach, the chrysalis case itself. To this he clung with desperation, and he had need to. As yet he had no means of flight.

There is no room for wing expanse inside a chrysalis. Material for wings was lying ready on his shoulders, it was moisture laden, packed in crumpled folds, and lifeless.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRIMSTONES.]

The thunder pa.s.sed away seawards, drawing the valley moisture in its train. From eastward came a gentle drying breeze. It crept from leaf to leaf with its soft-whispered message until it reached the leaf that most had need of it.

The little Emperor trembled with excitement. His wings were coming into being. One by one, like petals of an opening flower, the clinging folds relaxed and told their secret. One by one the branching nervures hardened.

By sundown the great change of all was over. The Emperor, no longer little, was fit to mount his throne. Westward, as if in sympathy, the sky was flooded with imperial purple.

He chose the loftiest branch of the loftiest oak in the forest. Before him stretched an acre of clearing, thronged with his subjects. Every cla.s.s was represented, or rather every cla.s.s but one. Ages ago the Swallow tail disputed sovereignty with the Purple Emperor. Fortune declared against him, and he retreated, like some Hereward, to the fens. There to this day he holds a third-rate court.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEAc.o.c.kS.]

It was a brilliant gathering that greeted the Emperor. Every colour, every form was there. Whites and brimstones, silver-studded fritillaries, peac.o.c.ks, red admirals, and painted ladies, walls and ringlets, hairstreaks, blues, and skippers, even the little Duke of Burgundy, even the white and admirable Sibylla.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAIRSTREAKS.]

Happy midsummer children! They flashed their dainty tints from leaf to leaf, from flower to flower, their life one long-drawn revel in the suns.h.i.+ne.

From his high throne the Emperor watched and envied. He was tiring of lonely grandeur. Now and again he soared a hundred feet into the air, then with his wings full spread and motionless, sailed slowly back on to the summit of the oak.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADMIRALS.]

Never was flight more exquisite. As he rose, one caught the glint of the imperial purple; as he descended, its full glory was revealed. Nowhere in nature is the pure radiant effulgence of that purple surpa.s.sed. It is the purple of the rainbow itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKIPPERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WHITE AND ADMIRABLE SIBYLLA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE SAT ON AN OAK PINNACLE OUTLINED AGAINST THE SKY.]

Once, and once only, did he deign to touch the ground. Deep in the hollow behind the clearing, where the footpaths crossed each other, a shallow muddied pool had formed. In it the Emperor saw, from on high, his own reflection. Perhaps it was mere vanity that drew him closer; perhaps the fancy that he saw a rival; perhaps, but this is not likely, thirst. Close to the margin lay a rough-edged clumsy flint. On this he settled, and, Narcissus like, feasted his eyes on his own beauty. He nearly met Narcissus' fate. It was the flint that saved him. He felt the shadow, almost before it reached him, but even so he rose too late. For half a minute he, the Purple Emperor, was prisoner in a boy's straw hat. Had the hat covered the flint completely, he must a.s.suredly have graced a cabinet. Fortunately for him the flint was just an inch too wide. The hat lay slant-wise across it, leaving a narrow crescent outlet on each side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EMPEROR ALIGHTED WITHIN A FOOT OF HER, ... AS HE OPENED HIS WINGS TO SHOW THEIR BEAUTY.]

An old collector would have doffed his coat to cover hat and flint alike, would have sat beside them patiently till nightfall, would have done anything to make certain of his prize. But this collector was only a boy.

With youthful recklessness he raised the brim a hair's-breadth off the flint, and, in a moment, the Emperor was fifty feet above him.

It had been a near thing. Higher he soared, and higher, exulting in his freedom, and, as he soared, he sighted the Princess. She sat on an oak pinnacle outlined against the sky. Who was she? Whence had she come? On her wings was the broad white ribbon of b.u.t.terfly royalty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE TURNED HER BACK ON HIM.]

The Emperor alighted within a foot of her. For the first time in his life he felt humble. As he opened his wings to show their beauty, she turned her back on him; as he closed them again, she sought another tree. But the Emperor was not so easily baffled. He followed in hot haste, and once more settled on a neighbouring leaf. The Princess drooped her upper wings, as if she was asleep. But she was not. The Emperor crept along the leaves a little closer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EMPEROR ONCE MORE SETTLED ON A NEIGHBOURING LEAF.]