SAFE GOING! THE STORY OF WEFT THE WEAVER BY EDITH HOWES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 18

SAFE GOING! THE STORY OF WEFT THE WEAVER BY EDITH HOWES

THL summer night was warm and still, and lit by « brilliant moon. So still it was that the scents of the bush rose but a little way and hung among the leaves, or were wafted on the slightest breath and dropped again into the undergrowth. The birds had called their last good-nights and gone to rest, Jeaving ih c forest to their timid prey, the insects. These crept out now from crack and crevice, from bark and earth and rolled leaf and woven hammock, from all their day-long hiding places. The air was filled with voiceless talk, insect wireless messages broadcasted on waves too short for humans to pick up, sent out by fine pulsations and received by the delicate aerials of fringed feelers.

Among the brown branchlels of a twiggy shrub hung a brown case, about two inches long, tapering lo a point at its lower end. its tough wall ornamented with fragments of twig woven in with the silk. Its upper and wider end was pulled tightly shut with a draw-cord and tied securely to a stem, where it hung for weeks. From its lower point Weil, the Weaver found his way out into the night. He had not begun lo think of weaving yet, so young he was. It was only a few hours since he was hatched, and he was but the tiniest of tiny caterpillars; he was but a dot-creeping up the outside of the case, creeping to the top, to the stem, out and out till he came to the edge of a young leaf. , The delicious smell of that leaf! And its slill more delicious tasle! He nibbled it with his sharp cutting jaws and hard cutting lips. "I'm dreadfully hungry," he said. "So-am I;" said a passing spider, and she came running over the leaf towards him. But.quick though she was, he was quicker. Within him was a coil of silk, its free end in his mouth. In an instant he had gummed that end to the edge of the. leaf and had dropped, hanging suspended as ihe coil unwound. "I could do that too if 1 wanted to," said the spider, looking over the edge with her fierce eyes, "but you're too small to be worth the trouble. She went on her way, striding down the stem lo ihe trunk. Weft came up again, swallowing thesilk and coiling it away and shivering with fright. "I wish I had never left the case," he said. ' "Yet there was nothing to eat in there. But oh, what a dangerous world!" He crept along beneath the stem and out under another leaf, where it was darker and it seemed that he might eat unseen. But no sooner had he begun lo nibble than: "Please don't our leaf!" cried someone sharply. Weft looked about: he could see in the dark with his six black little eyes, set three on each side of his head. Rows and rows of molh eggs had been gummed to the under-surface of the leaf; in the still warmth of the summer night they were hatching fast. Each liny caterpillar, no bigger than a pinhead, sat up and ate his egg-skin as soon as he came out, then went wandering about the leaf, clinging with his sharp little claws and nibbling with his sharp little jaws. Most' of them were out, a drove of eager baby things, moving slowly down the leaf to its stem, eating its surface off as they went. "The one who had spoken sat up facing Weft. "It's our leaf," he said. "We are here first."' "Who wants your old leaf?" relorled Weft. "Plenty more leaves in the world. Millions of leaves." You don'l say so!" cried the tiny creature joyfully. "Then ihe world is filled with food! Come on, chaps, out into the world all filled with food." He raced along the leaf to the front of the little swarm, leading ihe way off the leaf and along the stem. "Well, if he's not afraid who should be?" Weft asked himself. <:So small and so defenceless! I will be as bold as he." He marched bravely alongand found another leaf; bul no sooner had lie bogun on that than an angry wireless scolding came at him from beneath it. "Stupid baby! Eat my house, would you?" '|My gracious!" cried Weft. "Am I never to find a leaf J may cat?" Surely there are leaves enough without altacking mine!" said the creature, and she lurried swiftly to face him. She was a caterpillar of his own kmd, older and bigger. She had made herself a lilttc silken

rase, wide at one end and pointed at (lie oilier like the Lome he was hatched in, but instead of scraps of twig she had used a leaf as camouflage. She had fastened it into the silk by il s edges so thai il covered her like a lent and hid both ease and caterpillar She slarcd at him with her little black eyes, so like his own. "So you re a Weaver too" she cried. "Why don't you make your case? Coinabout like that! You'll be eaten if you don't take care." «m ni r °at than be CalC"'" 'awgnted Weft. "I'm so hun-ny " Well, dont say I didn't warn you, that's all. And for goodness sake look your caf over before you begin." She turned and went off. .safe going!" she called. "Safe going!" replied Weft, and went on to the next leaf He examined it carefully. Had he at last found one that he might H" 1 i *'v Wf,? U!' C ! 1I10C(:ilPiecl, so he set to with a will and soon had filled himself so full that his skin was as light as a drum -Mow I've overdone it," he said. Oh dear! Why did I cat so much' 1 m really most uncomfortable. I don't like my skin. I don't like it» He crept m.o a crack and rested awhile, but his skin grew unbearable. He began to wriggle and pull, jerking his head back u,,d back Ho wnggled and pushed. Suddenly pop!°wenl the skin over L "houlde" cracking and splitting. Out through the break he pushed his head ot what a relief! "I'm moulting. Thai's what il is," he cried Moulting he was. Struggling and slrclching, he pulled himself entirely out of his light skin and found himself irTa now one so and loose. fc was bigger now; he had room to expand. Yc°he Z is 11 c «m,o as before: a speckled cream-brown caterpillar will, a i "c lo len short sucker-legs or dinging, six long front ones with Z c S claws lor catching and holding and piercing, twenty breathing holes dow us sides, fine hairs and bristles and feelers for feeling and "meinn-in h-gungjn. He vested, then left his old s kin lying there and cat* o v lm so hungry he said, and he ale as if.he had been starved, for such is the way of little caterpillars. It was the next Tiight before he fell ready to make his ease. He had spent he day curled in hole under v joint, not daring l 0 walk into he daylight and the eager gaze of birds.. Now that thesof? coolness o iiig In tr hisbody-Th 4 ™id^ Moving his head from side to side, working with spinnerets and jaws and claws, he wove closely a narrow band of silk, stretched it aero „ hont of him, and fastened it firmly at each end to the twi~ Now he straddled this band with his body, tucked his head under it and turned a somersault, landing on his back. Q uic kly he riSi d The' nT" S f r.° Un, d °? tO I" 3 feCt again- HC WaS ben™lh *band as if he had put his head under a strap. . He drew the two ends of the band together under Inm, spun some more silk, and so joined them into a collar. His case was begun. Bending himself round, he wove row after row of silk on the lower thfsifk £V \ f CUt T° ff P" CeS °f *" IWiS 3nd wo^Sn™ he silk as he went along. In quite a short time lie had made a little norn-shaped case that completely covered his tiny body. He spun again, and made a silken lining for extra strength and fnr warmth and comfort. He fixed a strong draw-cord round life in" lo he round doorway so that he could pull its Huffy edges shut in an instant. H was all beautifu ly and skilfully done, and already the silk was selling fast and tough in the little winds that flittered through the branche Hurrah!" Weft the Weaver exulted. "Now I shall go safely indeed My fine house! My splendid house! The best ho.Se in the bth' Nobody can catch me now. Who cares for spiders?" " ' He slipped his head and shoulders and six front legs out of his door and went marching proudly down the twig and along the branch carrying Ins fine caravan quaintly uptillcd on his tail. ' "No one can harm me now," he said, and all niajhl he led in quiet security, slipping into his case life a swift shadow when an enemy came When daylight dawned, he lied it to a stem, pulled il lightly shut with his draw-cord, and rested within.