Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 150, 22 December 1922, Page 20

Little Folk

[All Rights Reserved.] No. 24. THE WOODEN CATERPILLAR , '(Written for "The Post" by Edith Howes.) Under the ground beneath the wide spreading fronds of a troe-fern lay a wooden caterpillar. It might have been a. caterpillar asleep, so still it was, stretched out in its little burrow. Its six legs, its ringed body, its head and jaws, its five pairs of sucker discs, all. were there; but all were brawn, hard, wooden. A caterpillar turned to wood, it seemed to be, as if some magician from the Arabian Nights had cast a spell upon it. Day and night it lay strangely there, , still, enchanted. Yet there was life within, for by and by the back of the head split slowly open, and a slender stem pushed itself through, pointing upwards. Up and up it grew, thin, brown, woody, till it reached the surface of the ground. Pushing through to the light it grew and widened into a little upright column, like a tiny bulrush, set round with velvety brown spore-cases. The cases ripened and burst, setting free thousands of tiny spores. Most were blown about on the winds, to perish in unsuitable places. 'One, settling like n. grain of dust on a leaf, was eaten by a .caterpillar. •

Ho was a young caterpillar, and he knew no better than to eat the spore. Besides,' he had no mother to'guard him and tell him not to eat it; or, at any rate, if his mother was still alive he knew nothing of her and had never seen her. Weeks ago she had flown heavily in under tho, rata tree on her big, tawny moth wings, had dropped dozens of eggs carelessly about, and had, flown out again without ever looking to see whether they were in good places. Most of them, left exposed like that, had'been oaten by beetle or grub or bird, but this, one had fallen into a crack in the earth and had there hatched out: . ■■,-■-. j . First he had eaten his oivn egg-skin, then he had begun to burrow. Other caterpillars might live "in . bushes, climb trees, apin their ropes of silk, and drop from branch to branch; he was of a leas ambitious kind. For him, as for all his family, the'earth was home. In its cool darkness he could most safely and most comfortably live. So with his strong little jaws ho dug. and dug until-he.had made a burrow big enough to lie' in. Ho. pulled loose earth into its opening fl J iL V Alt J J or el door, atici there 'ho settled down. By day, while/ hungry birds were on the hunt, he stayed' within, but when the shadows fell and friendly night dropped darkly over all the bush and birds had gone to sleep, he would push away the loose earth from the opening and come out to feed. At first he "was content to nibble leaves and stems that grew about his door, but when these w«re eaten off ho had to venture further out. He would cut off a leaf. with-his sharp jaws, .drag it to his burrow, slip in, pull the leaf in, and close the opening with earth again; eating the leaf ab.his leisure. To eat and 'hide, that was his life. | ■ I .

And now, on one of the pulled-in leaves, he had eaten a spore. Well, there seemed no harm in that. He might, and probably would, eat hundreds of spores; spores of fern or moss or liverwort. He might eat larger seeds, yet none of them would do him any harm. Ah, but this j.oaa" was differentl\

Foe a long time he seemed "perfectly well.' He ate heartily and .came out at night as. he. had always "done. Days and weeks went by, and nothing happened except that he grew bigger and stronger and fatter. . . ■ .-■'■'

At-, last he was ready to change. Hii wandering .caterpillar friends had at Changing Time to spin filk Hammocks for themselves, or draw two leaves together and weave a bed between, or seek a sal's hiding-place under the bark of a treo; but ho had his safe hiding-place already made. , All he; had to do was to spin a ygry' little silk about the loose oarth in the opening: so as to bind'it in its place, and his burrow was ready for the Change.' When thut was done ho stretched himself out at his oase. All his life ho had been active in growth, constantly ■ devouring many times his own weight in food, casting his skin, and enlarging his burrow again and again aa he;needed more room: now he. was to rest while the forces of

Ufa took charge of him, transforming him from slow-crawling caterpillar to strongwinged moth. . ;

But tho change never took placo. . His enemy was within him. The spore ho had swallowed was a , fungus spbrq, a fungus that lived on animal juices; already, down near the end of his long body, it had begun to grow. He had devoured plants, now a plant was to devour him. It was drawing in his rich juices, making its woody tissues, and spreading fast. At first it had been slowly germinating; now it.strode ahead.

The lower part of his body was ■ soon filled with the woody structure, hard and brown. Ho would never begin to change now. He had no power to y/rinkle himself up and wriggle out of his last caterpillar skin as he had wrinkled and wriggled in former., castings; he would never lie in a shiny jointed case liko his brothers in the next' burrow, a chrysalis with wings and feathery feelers forming within. All those, parts which should have gone to the matting of . the moth wfere going instead to the growth of the; fungus. ' \ ■ Up> it crept, and up", silently, unceasingly. His whole body was rigid and wood-filled' now, even to the, short littlo legs. ] Yet he was not deadjs and probably' he had felt no pain at all; only he lay stiff and paralysed. But now the fungus atttcked his head, and at last life fled. The caterpillar was entirely eaten, the fungus filled his skin. In the burrow under the ground again there lay a caterpillar turned to wood, as if some magician from tho Arabian Nights had cast a spolJ upon it. '..'.'. By and by the head split slowly open, and out cams the Ilender stem. Up it went, pushing through the, earth to find the light. Above the ground it grew and widened into'a little upright column, like a tiny bulrush, set round with velveiv brown spore-oases. They ripened and burst, setting. free their sporea. Somn perished,' some were eaten by caterpillars and began again, that curious life-cycle, one of tho strangest happenings.- of Nature. ' , .