"Caterpillar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Another method of fighting this insect is to spread a sheet under the tree, and with a blow jar off the little Turk and secure him on the sheet. But I consider the lime procedure the less trouble and more effective. The tent caterpillar, which is easily seen, should be destroyed at once. We have yet another insect to contend with which infests the apple and pear, commonly called the Coddling Moth, and the larva, the apple-worm (Garpocapsa pomonella). The loss by the ravaaes of this insect ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... slim, though of a slightly more robust habit of body—has acquired the art of spinning (caterpillar-like) a cocoon, and of causing to adhere to the exterior thereof grains of sand and minute chips of shell. Though this vestlet is very frail and though the sandy outer coat is liable to drop off (when it collapses altogether), it seems to me to indicate distinct ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... looking for natural truths. I am less interested in the sermons in stones than I am in the life under the stones. The significance of the metamorphosis of the grub into the butterfly does not escape me, but I am more occupied with the way the caterpillar weaves her cocoon and hangs herself up for the winter than I am in this lesson. I had rather see a worm cast its skin than see a king crowned. I had rather see Phoebe building her mud nest than the preacher writing his sermon. I had rather see the big moth emerge from ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... "Bunch looks like a caterpillar," he said, recalling the time when his father had given him the pony; he was a boy then, and the pony was as much to him, it went through his mind, as Alice had ever been. Was it all a jest, an irony? ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man's hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the five fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... on these lines. In spite of strong counter-attacks on the Briqueterie and Montauban, by midday on July 2 our troops had captured Fricourt, and in the afternoon and evening stormed Fricourt Wood and the farm to the north. During July 3 and 4 Bernajay and Caterpillar woods were also captured, and our troops pushed forward to the railway north of Mametz. On these days the reduction of La Boisselle was completed after hard fighting, while the outskirts of Contalmaison were reached on July ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... variegated bushes and shrubs, and spotted and striped with purplish brown heath, indistinguishably blending with its image reflected in the still water, produced a curious resemblance, both in form and colour, to a richly-coated caterpillar, as it might appear through a magnifying glass of extraordinary power. The mists gathered as we went along: but, when we reached the top of Kirkstone, we were glad we had not been discouraged by the apprehension ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... in the new Church of St. Katharine in the Regent's Park! How Emily and I gloated over the imitation of them when we replaced the hideous old tables, and how exquisite we thought the initial I, which irreverent youngsters have likened, with some justice, to an enormous overfed caterpillar, enwreathed with ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for example, a tendency on the part of the gypsy-moth caterpillar to destroy utterly the forests of the United States. But were I addressing a thoughtful company of these caterpillars I should urge them to look upon their own future with modest self-distrust. However well their programme looks upon paper, it cannot be carried out without ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... the wood, she was anxious to get back to her right size again, and then to get into that lovely garden. But how? Peeping over a mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. At length, in a sleepy sort of way, it began talking to her, and she told ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... has any head, and he is not a fool, he could arrange a fine ambuscade, and catch those mighty and vain-glorious Imperialists and that fool Souches like rats in a trap. Or he might make a sudden attack on the flank and cut our army into two, as you divide a caterpillar crawling along ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... "punctual birds" can always be depended on. Indeed, there are few better places to study ornithology than in the orchard. Besides its regular occupants, many of the birds of the deeper forest find occasion to visit it during the season. The cuckoo comes for the tent-caterpillar, the jay for frozen apples, the ruffed grouse for buds, the crow foraging for birds' eggs, the woodpecker and chickadees for their food, and the high-hole for ants. The redbird comes, too, if only to see what a friendly covert its branches ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... great many photos as a matter of course. Also, they investigated some of the big, octagonal machines in the streets, finding them to be similar to the great "tanks" that were used in the war, except that they did not have the characteristic caterpillar tread; their eight faces were so linked together that the entire affair could roll, after a jolting, slab-sided, flopping fashion. Inside were curious engines, and sturdy machines designed to throw the cannon-shells they had seen; no ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... cure for the caterpillar now destroying young oaks in Devon," says a morning paper, "is to remove the pest at once." The idea of removing the trees does not seem to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... new friend, Nelly went on singing softly as she walked, and presently she found a pretty caterpillar dressed in brown fur, although the day was warm. He lay so still she thought him dead, till he rolled himself into a ball as ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... "I was a crawling, creeping caterpillar, and I fed on leaves in your Grandmother's garden until I got ready to spin my nest; and then I wrapped myself up so well that you would never have known me for a caterpillar; and when I came out in the Spring ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... felt its caterpillar feet coming toward the base of his nose. The insect turned neither to the right nor to the left. It rested between its two buzzing wings, on the slightly hooked edge of that learned nose, so well formed to carry spectacles. It cleared the little furrow produced by the incessant ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... on mine; the moment he catches my glance he retires. But in half a minute affection brings him back, still with the caterpillar in his beak, to the same branch. Whilst I have patience to look the other way there he stays, but again a glance sends him away. This is repeated four or five times, till, finally, convinced that I mean no harm and ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... sitting on the grass with a little cat in her arms, which she is trying to put to sleep. But the kitten is not so accommodating as a doll would be, and just as Polly does not dare to move for fear of waking her, she makes up her mind that a run after a leaf and a play with any chance caterpillar which may be so unlucky as to cross her path, will be very preferable, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... upon the labours of the bee, and unhappily begotten that is born for no goodness. His staff and his scrip are his walking furniture, and what he lacks in meat he will have out in drink. He is a kind of caterpillar that spoils much good fruit, and an unprofitable creature to live in a commonwealth. He is seldom handsome and often noisome, always troublesome and never welcome. He prays for all and preys upon ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... would yield excellent crops if it were not that a caterpillar devours the young plants, so that its culture has almost ceased. Only 10,000 pounds were exported in 1872. The orange thrives in so few localities on the Islands that it is not an article of commerce: only two boxes were exported last ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... wailed the mournful caterpillar. "He said we should sleep in cradles of silk and wake up with wings of purple! It has been the dream of my life to be a butterfly with wings ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... thought, and far back in the womb of things sees the rays parting from one orb, that diverge, ere they fall, by infinite diameters. Genius watches the monad through all his masks as he performs the metempsychosis of nature. Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed species; through many species the genus; through all genera the steadfast type; through all the kingdoms of organized ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and bore its fruit. The swallows and martins came, twittered about the roof, built their nests, reared their young, held their congress along the eaves, and then winged their flight in search of another spring. The caterpillar spun its winding-sheet, dangled in it from the great buttonwood tree that shaded the house, turned into a moth, fluttered with the last sunshine of summer, and disappeared; and finally the leaves of the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the word "coat" as co-at (recognizing the last combination as a member of the "at" family) the teacher will underline and call his attention to the digraph "oa" which he has already learned to pronounce as long "o." Most pupils however, meeting the word in a sentence—as, "The caterpillar's coat is green"—would, if reading thotfully recognize ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... fruit, half a water melon, a boar's head, and the pendent form of a dead wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a holland covering—the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge cocoon enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay a pile of articles which had evidently been adjudged unworthy of a place on the table. Yet what the pile consisted of it would have been difficult to say, seeing that the dust on the same ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hands, old gloves and all, exclaiming, with girlish delight, "How nice it will seem to have a plenty of new, neat dresses all at once, and be like other girls! Miss Bat always talks about economy, and has no more taste than a—caterpillar." Molly meant to say "cat," but remembering her pets, spared ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... of a sunny day the western sky has a softened aspect: its color, we say, has warmth in it On such a day you may meet a caterpillar on the footpath, and turn out for him. The house-fly thaws out; a company of cheerful wasps take possession of a chamber-window. It is oppressive indoors at night, and the window is raised. A flock of millers, born out of time, flutter in. It is most unusual weather for the season: it is so every ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... suffered considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food. This was felt more especially by my children; and the natives, to show their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish; these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... deep velvet black, the lower, ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which the sunlight passes, and few insects can compare with it in beauty, as it hovers over the flowers of the heliotrope, which furnish the favourite food of the perfect fly, although the caterpillar feeds on the aristolochia and the betel leaf and suspends its chrysalis from its ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... much about the transformations which had taken place in the life of that caterpillar. Their mother told them that the butterfly was sometimes considered a type of immortality. In this world we are, like the worm, in an inferior state of existence. Our bodies are laid in the grave, but ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... or caterpillar, called ver-palmiste is found in the heads of cabbage-palms,—especially after the cabbage has been cut out, and the tree has begun to perish. It is the grub of a curious beetle, which has a proboscis of such form as suggested the creole appellation, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the perpetually blissful, how must the angels laugh when in idle moments they listen to our speculations concerning the Divinity? They peer down at us as we look at ants dragging home a fragment of dead caterpillar. They hear ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... said the butterfly; "I am engaged to be married to a spider; I have been engaged ever since I was a caterpillar." ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... present, appreciated the order in which his schoolfellows had been named. Egerton—known as the Caterpillar—was the son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... kinds of insects are equally striking in their life-histories. All beetles, such as the potato bug and June bug, develop from grubs which, like the maggots of flies, are similar to worms in numerous respects. Butterflies and moths pass through a caterpillar stage having even more striking resemblances to worms. All the larvae of insects are therefore like one another, and like worms also, in certain fundamental characters of internal and external structure; so the conclusion that the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... each Oak-bud wound the wormy galls, With pigmy spears, or crush the venom'd balls; Fright the green Locust from his foamy bed, Unweave the Caterpillar's gluey thread; 495 Chase the fierce Earwig, scare the bloated Toad, Arrest the snail upon his slimy road; Arm with sharp thorns the Sweet-brier's tender wood, And dash the Cynips from her damask bud; Steep in ambrosial dews the Woodbine's bells, 500 And drive the Night-moth from her honey'd ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the egg, it becomes a large worm or caterpillar of a yellowish white color, (which is its first state;) this caterpillar feeds on the leaves of the mulberry tree, till, arriving at maturity, it winds itself up in a silken bag or case, called a cocoon, about ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... dispatch riders and scouts, travelling kitchens, great lorries, small light cars for supplies needed in a hurry—cars which make greater speed than the motor vans—omnibuses full of troops, and steam tractors or caterpillar engines for hauling ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but not killed, an apple-tree; another apple-tree stands stone dead on the edge of a crater: most of the trees are dead. British aeroplanes drone over continually. A great gun goes by towards Bapaume, dragged by a slow engine with caterpillar wheels. The gun is all blotched green and yellow. Four or five men are seated on ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... who had a great habit of saying he was frightened at everything, was one day walking with me in the garden, and clung to me suddenly, saying, 'I'se frightened of that sing,' and, looking down, I saw a caterpillar near his foot. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it ain't had nothin' to talk about lately. This will give it somethin'. Miss Lily Deford and Mr. Billy Pugh married! Whom the Lord loveth He chaseth! He sure must be fond of Mrs. Deford! Well, all I've got to say is I hope they'll stay away until the thunder and lightning is over. A caterpillar has about as much chance to stand up straight as Miss Lily to meet her ma in argument. I tell you now I wouldn't like that longnet thing she puts to her eye to stare at me if I was alone with her." She took up her basket. "Is ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt. 11:25). No one can find out how it happens; it passes human understanding, how the caterpillar in the dried-up cocoon takes a new life with the arrival of Spring. Before they reached that part in that precious Book where it begins to tell of the sufferings of and, finally, the death of the Lord Jesus, Ondrejko felt in his heart that all happened for him also. He could not ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... worthy men. These vertues now are banisht out of towne, Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne. He highest builds, who with most art destroys, And against others fame his owne employs. I see the envious caterpillar sit On the faire blossome of each growing wit. The ayre's already tainted with the swarms Of insects, which against you rise in arms. Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions, Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons. The barbed censurers begin to looke Like ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... reason, my lords, there is generally a malevolence in the merchant against the insurer, whom he considers as an idle caterpillar, living without industry upon the labours of others, and, therefore, when he lays down the sum stipulated for security, he is almost in suspense, whether he should not prefer the loss of the remaining part of the value ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... soft-bodied, the bodies being in segments, and either smooth or covered with short bristly hair. They spend nearly all their time in eating, and do immense damage to the foliage of trees and vegetables and to fruit. The adult is a moth or caterpillar. This class is among the farmer's worst ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... Lovelace Peyton treats me with confidence. He comes to me now just as he goes to Roxanne for things he wants, strings or sympathy, and I keep a supply of both on hand for him. And when he brings dreadful bugs and things I never let my heart quake—that is, so he will notice it. A woolly caterpillar was the last test ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... along the low, reeflike island which stretched away out of the picture. There was the gigantic, lonely pine he knew well, and, yes—he could just make it out—there was his own ramshackle little pier, which stretched in undulating fashion, like a long-legged, wading caterpillar, from the abrupt shore-line of eroded ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... sort of cat is to be dreaded? (Catastrophe.) 8. What sort of cat is allowed on the table? (Catsup.) 9. What sort of cat goes to Sunday school? (Catechism.) 10. What sort of cat do girls most detest? (Caterpillar.) 11. What sort of cat makes small ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... observed a curious fact, which I have never seen noticed in any book which has fallen in my way, viz. that it is the tail of the caterpillar which becomes the head of the butterfly. I found it hard to believe till I had convinced myself of it in a number of instances. The caterpillar weaves its web from its mouth, finishes with the head downwards, and the head, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... caterpillar system of traction used for heavy guns were to crawl across No Man's Land, enfilade the enemy front line with quick-firing and machine guns, and hurl bombs on such of the works and emplacements as they did not ram to pieces,—thus ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... but came from Europe in 1860 and landed at Quebec, from whence it has spread all over the country. In the drawing I have shown the female; the male is nearly the same but has only one round dark spot on the front wings. Its grub is a little naked green caterpillar, that eats very nearly a million dollars' worth of cabbages a year; so it is a pity it was ever allowed to land in this country. There are moths that we should like to get rid of, but this is the only butterfly that ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... drivers' seat the peasant whistled cheerily and cracked his whip. The long lines of London buses, that last year advertised soap, mustard, milk, and music-halls, and which now are a decorous gray; the ambulances; the great guns drawn by motor-trucks with caterpillar wheels, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... us as we passed. The cuckoo was calling amid his caterpillar feasting. An indigo bunting from a tall maple sang his clear, sweet notes. The silvery phrases of the orchard oriole fell on the ear like a shower of "liquid pearls." No other songster save the vireo is so prodigal of his minstrelsy. Occasionally we caught the loud, querulous notes of the great ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... you did?" he cried. "You brought me the wrong picture. And Dusty Moth has gone shrieking off into the darkness, he was so disappointed. This is not Betsy Butterfly's picture! It's some dreadful-looking caterpillar. And when I glanced at it just now, over in the orchard, it sent ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the late spring of 1888, anxiety was expressed by certain newspaper correspondents that the English oak would suffer extermination in consequence of caterpillars denuding it of its leaves. But naturalists who had studied the question knew better. The caterpillar, which is no doubt the larva of the green Tortrix moth (Tortrix viridana), spins its cocoon at the end of June or the beginning of July, and the effect of the heavy rains and warm sunny days since that ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... A caterpillar let itself down by a thread from the end of the bough under which I sat, in a direct line between me and the gateway. Very slowly, while I watched him, he descended for a couple of feet, swayed ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... caterpillar of the pine-trees, "endowed with an exquisite hygrometric sensibility," is a barometer more infallible than that of the physicists. "It foresees the tempests preparing afar, at enormous distances, almost in the other hemisphere," and announces them several ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously, that not one grain was lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said indifferently: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... miller's The nests of the sweet young caterpillars? Grilled fowl, indeed! Why, as I read, You had not even the plea of need; For all you boast Such wholesome roast, I saw no sign at tea or roast, Of even a caterpillar's ghost. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... objectionable than the English one, because he is under less restraint, and knows no precincts forbidden to him. Generally intelligent and observant, he is here, there, and everywhere; nothing escapes him, nothing is sacred to him. Of course his further development draws its form and shape from his previous caterpillar condition, and when he comes to take his place in mercantile or professional life, he is equally ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... make silk of a different color, but who cares for that when diamond dyes are so cheap, and if we wanted red silk we could try feedin' em on red stuff, beets, and red russets and such. Why," sez he, "with Ury's help I could start a caterpillar bizness that would be the makin' of me. And oh, how I would love to robe your figger, Samantha, in silk from ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... is an evil, and a terrible evil. But I think rather of death as the first pulse of the new strength, shaking itself free from the old mouldy remnants of earth-garments, that it may begin in freedom the new life that grows out of the old. The caterpillar dies into the butterfly. Who knows but disease may be the coming, the keener life, breaking into this, and beginning to destroy like fire the inferior modes or garments of the present? And then disease would be but the sign of the salvation of fire; of the agony of the greater life to lift ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... peck per acre could be calculated upon. I saw more than one field without a head. The most fortunate calculate upon a half crop only. Corn is backward on the lower James River, embracing my own farm. I have heard to-day from my manager that the caterpillar has made its appearance, and must in the late wheat ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... footing along the curb. Presently from the approaching column came who but Hilary Kincaid, galloping easily over the slippery pavements. Anna saw his eyes sweep the bank of human flowers (with its occasional male caterpillar) on Moody's balcony and light upon Flora. He lifted his kepi and halted. One could read ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... in a tray, in which he was accustomed to place seed for birds. Soon a little flock of sparrows and other small birds assembled to feed as usual. One of them lit on the edge of this tray, and was just going to hop in, when she spied the caterpillar. Immediately she began bobbing her head up and down in the odd way which some small birds have, but was afraid to go nearer. Another joined her and then another, until at last there was a little company ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... were at Brantwood again, now, and could send you my wasp book! It is pathetic, and yet so dreadful,—the wasp bringing in the caterpillar for its young wasp, stinging each enough to paralyze but not to kill, and so laying them up in ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... surveying their domain. There was not space in it, at this hour, for the shadow of the elm-tree in the angle of the hedge; it crossed the lawn, cut the flower-border in two, and ran up the side of the house to the nursery window. She bent to flick a caterpillar from the honey-suckle; then, as they turned indoors, "If we mean to go on the yacht next Sunday," she suggested, "oughtn't you to let ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... higher and brighter through that instant's approach and confidence. If I were to write down his thought as he walked, it would be with phrase and distinction peculiar to himself and to the boy-mind,—"It's the real thing with her; it don't make a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a caterpillar. She's good; but ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... ELLIPSIS} There are many powers; and there is one which is by nature proper to God and eternal; but Christ, again, is not the true power of God, but is one of those which are called powers, of whom also the locust and the caterpillar are called not only a power but a great power [Joel 2:2], and there are many other things like to the Son, concerning whom David says in the Psalms: "The Lord of Powers";(101) likewise the Logos is mutable, as are all things, and by His own free choice, so far ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... certain cases it forms a free embryo which appears to be complete, having a special form and mode of life, but which finally becomes transformed into an entirely different sexual individual. Thus from the egg of a butterfly there first emerges a caterpillar, which lives and grows for some time, then changes to a chrysalis and finally to a butterfly. The caterpillar and the chrysalis belong to the embryonic period. During this period every animal reproduces in an abbreviated ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... mighty blunders. For my part, I do not look down from heights, whence all seems confused and blurred,—the man who prunes a tree with his knife, all one with the caterpillar who devours its leaf; a couple of insects, each at his proper task. Do you, if you choose, perch yourself on the epicycle of the planet Mercury, and thence distribute creation, in imitation, of Reaumur; he, the classes of flies into seamstresses, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... I will exercise your promised patience by saying a little of the caterpillar, or the palmer-fly or worm; that by them you may guess what a work it were, in a discourse, but to run over those very many flies, worms, and little living creatures, with which the sun and summer adorn and beautify the river-banks and meadows, both for the recreation ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... sir, a courtesy Which if we should deny, the most just gods For every graff would send a caterpillar, And so ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... slippery path of life—of my first acquaintance with water-gruel and A B C! Thou corner, in which I stood with lessons difficult to be learned; and thou, in which I in vain endeavoured to tame the most thankless of all created things, a fly and a caterpillar!—you floors, which have sustained me sporting and quarrelling with my beloved brother and sisters!—you papers, which I have torn in my search after imagined treasures;—you, the theatre of my battles with carafts and drinking-glasses—of my heroic actions ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... be said about the way in which silkworm rearers have been induced by the V.A.A. to keep the same breed of caterpillar, so facilitating bulking of cocoons at the association's co-operative sales. A small library of silkworm-culture books has been started in the village, and there is a special pamphlet for young men which they are urged to ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... evincing not the slightest pity for his pangs of unrequited affection. Cecily winced when Pat caught a mouse, visited a school chum the day the pigs were killed that she might not hear their squealing, and would not have stepped on a caterpillar for anything; yet she did not care at all how much she made the brisk ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... plucked the night before; a precaution on no account to be dispensed with, till the young plant has fully struck root. You must also daily visit the {173} tobacco, to clear it of caterpillars, which fasten upon it, and would entirely eat it up, if they are not destroyed. The tobacco-caterpillar is of the shape of a silk-worm, has a prickle on its back towards its extremity; its colour is of the most beautiful sea-green, striped with silver-streaks; in a word, it is as beautiful to the eye as it is fatal to the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... object like a dun-piled caterpillar, Shuffling its length in painful heaves along, Hitherward.... Yea, what is this Thing we see Which, moving as a single monster might, Is yet ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... until I would either hear the discharge of their shells or see them as they were being unlimbered. To move a heavy gun in mud is no small task. For more than an hour one day I was held up in a truck and watched a dozen experts, with block and tackle and "caterpillar tractor" move a twelve-inch monster from its hidden foundation up a slight incline toward the roadway. It was an hour well spent, for it gave me an object lesson concerning the difficulty with which great field pieces are moved ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... A caterpillar, which the Indians name sustillo, and by which a paper is fabricated, very similar to that made in China, is bred in the pacae, a tree well known in Peru. In proportion to the vigour and majestic growth of this tree, is the number of the insects it nourishes, and which are of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... only give one more to illustrate the higher form of Animal Life appreciating Animal Life. There is a large class of insects, called Ichneumonidae, which lay their eggs in the bodies of caterpillars, and, as in the case of a moth laying its egg on the special food plant upon which its caterpillar can feed, so does each species of these insects unerringly lay its eggs in the body of a particular kind of caterpillar. It must be a wonderful sense which can enable an Ichneumon Fly to do this; it has never seen that caterpillar before, as the egg, from which its own caterpillar was hatched, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... sat down at the table. "I don't know why it is, but the present generation has a marvelous way of skimming around any kind of work with their hands. They'll work their brains till they haven't got any more backbone than a caterpillar, but as for manual labor, it's old-timey and out of fashion. I wonder how these farms would ever have been carved out of the backwoods, if the old Puritans had sat down on the rocks with their noses in a lot of books, and tried to figure out just how little work they ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... at Folkestone, education is here a strong feature, and a few years ago demure files of young ladies with attendant dragon taking the air between breakfast and study might have been seen. The epoch-ending events of the last few years, however, appear to have killed the "caterpillar." ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... attention to Prophet Elias, who had been crawling like a torpid caterpillar. For some moments he had been rigidly motionless in one spot. He was leaning against the front of the vault, his ear closely pressed to the crevice at the base ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... that silk [61] is originally spun from the bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb, from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the reign of Justinian, the silk-worm who feed on the leaves of the white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine, the oak, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... American volunteers. These gallant spirits now lie in untimely sepulcher. No more will they respond to the fierce blast of the bugle or the call to arms. But let us believe that they are not dead, but sleeping! Look at the patient caterpillar as he crawls on the ground, liable to be crushed by every careless foot that passes. He heeds no menace, and turns from no dangers. Regardless of circumstances, he treads his daily round, avoided by the little child ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... green. It is all in one piece, only a little slit in the top. I wonder what came out of it. Close by it there is another green box, long and narrow, but not empty, and no slit in the top. I wonder what is in it. Near it is a smooth, green caterpillar, crawling on the edge of a bit of cabbage-leaf. I'm afraid that bright light has hurt my eyes. It was just outside of my prison wall, and bright as the sun. The first thing I remember, even before my wings had opened wide, or I was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... earlier. In many cases this could not be otherwise; thus the inherited peculiarities in the horns of cattle could appear only in the offspring when nearly mature; peculiarities in the silk-worm are known to appear at the corresponding caterpillar or cocoon stage. But hereditary diseases and some other facts make me believe that the rule has a wider extension, and that, when there is no apparent reason why a peculiarity should appear at any particular age, yet that it does tend to appear in the offspring ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... men. It was put on small wooden arrow-heads, and carefully protected by a piece of maize-leaf tied round it. It caused numbness of the tongue when the smallest particle was tasted. The Bushmen of the northern part of the Kalahari were seen applying the entrails of a small caterpillar which they termed 'Nga to their arrows. This venom was declared to be so powerful in producing delirium, that a man in dying returned in imagination to a state of infancy, and would call for his mother's breast. Lions when shot with it ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... hobbledehoy, hopeful, cadet, minor, master. scion; sap, seedling; tendril, olive branch, nestling, chicken, larva, chrysalis, tadpole, whelp, cub, pullet, fry, callow; codlin ,codling; foetus, calf, colt, pup, foal, kitten; lamb, lambkin[obs3]; aurelia[obs3], caterpillar, cocoon, nymph, nympha[obs3], orphan, pupa, staddle[obs3]. girl; lass, lassie; wench, miss, damsel, demoiselle; maid, maiden; virgin; hoyden. Adj. infantine[obs3], infantile; puerile; boyish, girlish, childish, babyish, kittenish; baby; newborn, unfledged, new-fledged, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... he is, the beast! Yes, Margaret; a caterpillar, curled up—see him! Right in the heart of this exquisite bud. No wonder the whole plant has sickened; she is very sensitive, La France. There, Madame, he is gone. Now, a little shower of quassia, just to freshen you up; eh? See, Margaret, how gratefully the beautiful creature responds. ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... romance lived before her, but she was not thinking of John Keats as she listened; she was wondering if this cousin was a kindred spirit, born to make such music and leave as sweet an echo behind him. It seemed as if it might be; and, after going through the rough caterpillar and the pent-up chrysalis changes, the beautiful butterfly would appear to astonish and delight them all. So full of this fancy was she that she never thanked him when the story ended but, leaning forward, asked in a tone that made him start and look as if he had ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... perceived, but apparently too late, the bad balance of the composition, and had endeavoured to redress this by a few more flowers thrown loose upon the table. Towards these flowers a bulbous green caterpillar was wriggling, at the very edge of the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... through the doors of the waiting room toward a rattletrap vehicle. It looked something like a cross between a schoolboy's jalopy and a scaled-down army tank of former times. The treads were caterpillar style, and the stubby body was completely enclosed. A tiny airlock ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... the Fr. chenille, a hairy caterpillar), a twisted velvet cord, woven so that the short outer threads stand out at right angles to the central cord, thus giving a resemblance to a caterpillar. Chenille is used as a trimming for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... I quoted, as I fished it out on my stick; and just then I heard a distressed voice saying, "Oh, aunt Celia, I've lost my smart little London shoe. I was sitting in a tree, taking a pebble out of the heel, when I saw a caterpillar, and I dropped it into the river, the shoe, you know, not the caterpillar." Hereupon she came in sight, and I witnessed the somewhat unusual spectacle of my nut-brown mayde hopping on one foot, like a divine stork, and ever and anon emitting ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cabbage group, comes from the eggs laid by the common white or yellow butterfly of early spring. Pick off all that are visible, and spray with kerosene emulsion if the heads have not begun to form. If they have, use hellebore instead. The caterpillar or worm of tomatoes is a large green voracious one. Hand-picking ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... sticks to that name, in speaking of the gentleman with the diamond,) Ma'am Allen tried to peek into it one day when she left it on the sideboard. "If you please," says she,—'n' took it from him, 'n' gave him a look that made him curl up like a caterpillar on a hot shovel. I only wished he had n't, and had jest given her a little sass, for I've been takin' boxin'-lessons, 'n' I 've got a new way of counterin' I want ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... colours of the male" (loc. cit., page 155).) I always distrust myself when I differ from him; but I cannot admit that birds learn to make their nests from having seen them whilst young. I must think it as true an instinct as that which leads a caterpillar to suspend its cocoon in a particular manner. Have you had any experience of birds hatched under a foster-mother making their nests in the proper manner? I cannot thank you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... larvae, than do the females; whereas amongst insects, as in the case of the glow-worm in Coleoptera, and of certain nocturnal Lepidoptera, it is the female which retains an embryonic character, being worm-like or caterpillar-like, without wings. But in all these cases, the male is more ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... skill in writing verses; but it is easy to read, through their poems, their personal history; any one acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and that is Rachel. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar with wings, and not yet a butterfly. In the poet's mind, the fact has gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that is exuvial. This generosity abides with Shakspeare. We say, from the truth and closeness of his pictures, that ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... each. It was some little time longer before they said Brother or Sister Bear, but that came next, and the other day she had heard one little fellow cry, "Ah, Sister Serpent!" to a snake that bit him as he played with it too roughly. Most of them would have nothing to do with a caterpillar, except watch it through its changes; but when at length it came from its retirement with wings, all would immediately address it as Sister Butterfly, congratulating it on its metamorphosis—for which they used a word that meant something like REPENTANCE—and ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... on me, 'tis the caterpillar Sordido! how curst are the poor, that the viper was blest with ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... far and near, some of them melodious, others songs only by courtesy. Down stream a red-eyed vireo preaches persistently in an elm top. Across the pasture I hear the rich voice of an oriole stopping his caterpillar hunting long enough to trill a round phrase or two from the apple-tree bough. A flock of chickadees, old and young, comes through, nervously active in their hunting and with voices in which there is a tang of the coming autumn. Up in the pines a blue jay clamors with the same clarion ring in his ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... strings, only the length of a single animal in thickness, and of the breadth of two of them abreast; they swam with the blue-pointed ends downwards, which then looked at a distance like the legs of a caterpillar, and the long string somewhat resembled a long gelatinous band in appearance as it passed through the water; but directly it was touched the animals separated themselves from one another. These strings were sometimes seen several feet ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... never heard the curate preach—had heard talk of his oddity on all sides, from men and women no more capable of judging him than the caterpillar of judging the butterfly—which yet it must become. The draper, who understood him, naturally shrunk from praising to her the teaching for which he not unfrequently deserted that of her father, and she never looked in the direction of him with any hope. Yet now, the very ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... blow an alarm in every place—for the blasting and for the blighting, for the locust and for the caterpillar, and for the evil beast, and for the sword, they blow an alarm over them, because ...
— Hebrew Literature
... altogether, and even when at home she spent no small share of the time in flitting about among the branches of the tree. On such occasions, I often saw her hover against the bole or a patch of leaves, or before a piece of caterpillar or spider web, making quick thrusts with her bill, evidently after bits of something to eat. On quitting the nest, she commonly perched upon one or another of a certain set of dead twigs in different parts of the tree, and at once shook out her feathers and spread her ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... back yonder when all the world was twenty or thereabouts, and when every wild-cherry-bush was an olive tree. But one day the tent caterpillar like a wolf swept down on our fold of cherry-bushes and we fled Arden, never to get back. We lived for a time in town and bought olives in bottles, stuffed ones sometimes, then we got a hill in Hingham, just this side of Arden, still buying our olives, but not our apples now, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... Salem, Mass., presented the "National Institute" with an insect from New Zealand, with the following description: "'The Hotte, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found gnawing at the root of the Rota tree, with a plant growing out of its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary insect travels up both the Rota and Ferriri trees, and entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of the trees until it reaches ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... exclusive use of the sand pit for one year, taking out as much sand as he needed, and also let him have the heavy timbers from the old mill, as he needed them for some shoring he had to do, he would be willing to tear down the old mill, dig our ditch, build us a new dam and a new road, using his caterpillar steam shovel for ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... have been difficult to please, if he were not satisfied, for the artist had filled every inch of space—there was scarcely room to have added a caterpillar. In spite, however, of this attractive exterior, the hotel did not prosper—it was never more than half full, though it was large and comfortable. Unfortunately, from its proximity to the Pre-aux-Clercs, it was frequented by so many persons either going or ready to fight, that ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... inquisitors. Chellalu knows these ways. She now produced a long wisp of red tape from somewhere—she did not tell us where—and proceeded to tie her feet together. This accomplished, she curled herself up on the bench like a caterpillar on a leaf, and to all appearances went to sleep. Why was she not awakened and compelled to behave properly? asks the reader, duly shocked. Perhaps because on that rather special morning the teacher preferred ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... appear to have paid much attention to the natural history of the "Worm." Kirby, speaking of it, says, "the larvae of Crambus pinguinalis spins a robe which it covers with its own excrement, and does no little injury." Again, "I have often observed the caterpillar of a little moth that takes its station in damp old books, and there commits great ravages, and many a black-letter rarity, which in these days of bibliomania would have been valued at its weight in gold, has been snatched by these ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... more to spin his web as a caterpillar, and comes forth again in the third part, making his third appearance in the world. His half-fledged wings bear him quickly to the Paternostergaessel, of which he becomes the Kapellmeister. Having emerged from the school ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... the Woolly-bear Caterpillar? It is divided into three parts; the middle one brown, the two ends black. Everyone notices the Woolly-bear, because it comes out in early spring, as soon as the frost is over, and crawls on the fences and sidewalks as though they belonged to it. It does not seem to be ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... he forth, "was he that, if he thought he had hurt the feelings of a caterpillar, should have risen from his warm bed the sharpest night in winter to go and pray his pardon of his bare knees. God assoil him, loving and gentle soul! He was all unfit for this rough world. And the dust ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... faith. Gatty. Parables from nature, p. 1. Poulsson. In the child's world, p. 307. Boston collection of kindergarten stories, p. 139. (Adapted.) Harrison. In story-land, p. 96. (Story of the small green caterpillar.) Olcott. Good stories, p. ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... as wet as Robin had been after he fell into the river. The men roared with laughter. Little John looked so funny as he rolled about on the grass, trying to get out of his long, wet, green robe. He looked just like a huge green caterpillar. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... of them, takes place shortly before their death. Each of these transformations is designated by so many terms, that it may not be useless to observe to the reader, who has not previously paid attention to the subject, that larva, caterpillar, grub, maggot, or worm, is the first state of the insect on issuing from the egg; that pupa, aurelia, chrysalis, or nympha are the names by which the second metamorphosis is designated, and that the last stage, when the insect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... the same word means the soul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, grovelling caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the most fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. Psyche, then, is the human soul, which is purified by sufferings and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... sacrifice of some kind." Nelson's heart began to pound at the thought. Then he fought for self control. It must be a hideously realistic nightmare! He, Victor Nelson, American citizen, a quiet birdman, member of the Caterpillar Club and ex-flight commander of the A. E. F. was about to be offered as a sacrifice to some hideous, pagan god? Nonsense! He'd wake up in a minute and hear the drone of ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... sentiment of coarse animal attraction—in short, poetry such as mine was altogether absurd and out of date when confronted with the facts of every-day existence—facts which plainly taught us that man's chief business here below was simply to live, breed, and die—the life of a silk-worm or caterpillar on a slightly higher platform of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... pews after sittin' in 'em for all our life-times! I just shook my head an' walked to my pew, an' there, if it wasn't looped shut with a daisy-chain! Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I wish you could have been there to have felt for me, for I may remark as a cyclone is a caterpillar wove up in hisself beside my face when I see myself daisy-chained out o' my own pew by Polly Allen. Ed was behind me an' he whispered 'That's reserved for the family.' I give him one look an' I will state, Mrs. Lathrop, as he wilted. It didn't take ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Morey was operating the controls of the handling robots. On the screen, a machine rolled in on caterpillar treads, picked up the lux case and its contents, and carried ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... 'Go it, old kangaroo,' howls Dig. 'Take your time and tuck in that shoe-lace,' says Marky. 'A million to one on our man,' says I; and then up goes the bar to 5 foot 5; and then you could have heard a caterpillar wink. Old Barnworth looked a little green himself this time; and didn't seem in a hurry to begin. He muffed his first jump, and we all thought the game was up. But no! The beggar hopped over second time as easily as I could hop 3 feet. My word, it was a hop! Dig stood on his head ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... earth; For scarce nine suns have wak'd the hours, To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers, Since I thy humbler life survey'd, In base, in sordid guise array'd. I own my humble life, good friend; Snail was I born and snail shall end. And what's a butterfly? At best He's but a caterpillar drest; And all thy race (a numerous seed) ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... is always a fly in the ointment, a caterpillar in the salad. The local golf club, an institution to which Mrs. Smethurst strongly objected, had also tripled its membership; and the division of the community into two rival camps, the Golfers and the Cultured, had become more marked than ever. This division, always acute, had ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... as a nurse for my poor children," said a butterfly to a quiet caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage-leaf in ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... in spite of which I drove to Busson Hill, and had a talk with Bran about the vile caterpillar blights on the wild plum trees, and asked him if it would not be possible to get some sweet grafts from Mr. C—— for some of the wild fruit trees, of which there are such quantities. Perhaps, however, they are not worth grafting. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... pairs of legs—or at least it acts as if it knew this. It stings the insect first under the neck, then behind the prothorax, and then where the thorax joins the abdomen.[71] The Ammophila Hirsuta gives nine successive strokes of its sting upon nine nerve-centres of its caterpillar, and then seizes the head and squeezes it in its mandibles, enough to cause paralysis without death.[72] The general theme is "the necessity of paralyzing without killing"; the variations are subordinated to the structure of the victim on which they are played. No doubt the operation is not ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... yours, O Maruts, that greatness extended as far as the sun extends its daily course, when you, like your deer on their march, went down to the western mountain with untouched splendor. Your host, O Maruts, shone forth when, O sages, you strip, like a caterpillar, the waving tree. Conduct then, O friends, our service to a good end, as the eye conducts the man in walking. That man, O Maruts, is not overpowered, he is not killed, he does not fail, he does not shake, he does not drop, his goods ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... measles were going the rounds, she could see symptoms of measles in everything the children did or didn't do; or that well-known habit of hers, that even the children laughed about with her, of feeling things crawling all over her for hours after she had seen a caterpillar. Well, that was only the other side of her extraordinary sensitiveness, that made her know how everybody was feeling, and what to do to make him feel better. She had often said that she would certainly die if she ever tried to study medicine, because as fast as she ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... period of life, tend to reappear in the offspring at the same period;—for instance, in the shape, size, and flavor of the seeds of the many varieties of our culinary and agricultural plants; in the caterpillar and cocoon stages of the varieties of the silkworm; in the eggs of poultry, and in the color of the down of their chickens; in the horns of our sheep and cattle when nearly adult; so in a state of nature Natural ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and quadrupeds, welcomed the apple-tree to these shores. The tent-caterpillar saddled her eggs on the very first twig that was formed, and it has since shared her affections with the wild cherry; and the canker-worm also in a measure abandoned the elm to feed on it. As it grew apace, the bluebird, robin, cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... didn't want the other caterpillar to see the moth's wing, you know; so what must he do but t'y to carry it with all his left legs, and he t'ied to walk on the other set. Of course, he toppled ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... Sphynx, &c.), which have a soft fleshy horn on their tails, erroneously believed to be a sting. If a farmer is so lucky as to procure one of these rare larvae, he is to bore a hole in an ash tree, and plug up the unlucky caterpillar alive in it. The leaves of that ash tree will, from thenceforth, be ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... Emmeline innocently tries to eat "the never-wake-up berries" and receives a stern rebuke and a lecture about poison from Paddy Button. "The Poetry of Learning" chapter echoes Alice's dialogue with the caterpillar. Like the wily creature smoking a hookah, Paddy smokes a pipe and shouts "Hurroo!" as the children teach him to write his name in the sand. The children lose "all count of time," just as the Mad Hatter ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural powers, doubtless from bearing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas. Peter Stuyvesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and seizing him as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, "Ah, whoreson caterpillar," roared he, "here's what shall make worms' meat of thee!" So saying, he whirled his sword, and dealt a blow that would have decapitated the varlet, but that the pitying steel struck short, and shaved the queue for ever from his crown. At this moment an arquebusier levelled his ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... morning to night. Their anxiety to gain money without labour annoyed me less than the extortionate prices with which they tried to impose on a stranger. For a beetle, such as could be found under every stone, they asked 5 kr. (about 2d.); as much for a caterpillar, of which thousands were lying on the beach; and for a common bird's egg, 10 to 20 kr. (4d. to 8d.) Of course, when I declined buying, they reduced their demand, sometimes to less than half the original sum; but this was certainly not in consequence of their honesty. The baker ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... me think of the cradle as the cocoon or chrysalis in which, as by a miracle (for here natural and supernatural seem one and the same), the caterpillar has undergone his transformation and emerging spreads his wings and forthwith takes his flight a full-grown butterfly with all its ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... caterpillar. Now give your mind to what I am going to say; for it's a new and important scientific theory of the English national character. ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... remember that you never were any fun, as a girl, Dora," observed Mr. Lockwood, at the supper table that night, when his sister uttered her usual criticisms of the twins' conduct. "You squealed if you came across a caterpillar, and a garter snake sent you into spasms, and it tired you to ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... oblige John, and personally had little expectation of anything coming of it. Moreover, the night air was chilly. If he could get that cloak from John now! He crawled in to try, but big John was rolled up like a caterpillar. It was warmer inside there than out, anyway. And he could keep watch there just as well as outside; so he propped himself up alongside John, and braced his mind ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the coast. He ran as fast as he could, but he dared not look round. He ran back from the coast to the plain, from which a white mist was rising. By this time every single caterpillar had disappeared. The whistling noise continued ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... been telling her some of her awful ghost stories," said Louis, laughing over the wreck of his slate. "I know what sent the yellow caterpillar crawling down stairs." ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Gwen, "and it's fun. I caught two big old beetles and tied threads on them for harnesses. Then I hitched them to a wee little paper box about an inch long and they made a good span. They dragged it all right 'til I dumped an old fuzzy caterpillar into the box, and then they tumbled over on their backs and squirmed and kicked like everything! If I could find one now I could show ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... CATERPILLAR.—You are likely to be criticized unkindly by those who are envious of you, although you have no suspicion that these people are anything but friendly in their feeling towards you; there is slyness and deception, and it would be well to be on ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... sleigh which is made of a dove-feather, curling up in front, and which is drawn by twelve lady birds: the lady birds all had on robes of caterpillar fuz to keep them warm. The retinue of eleven Faeries were all riding on milk-white steeds of dandelion-down. The Queen held the reins herself, and cracking the whip which is made of a musquito leg, away they went over the moon-beam. The Queen saw ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... rivalling the flight of birds, and the brilliancy of the peacock. Consider this insect through the wonderful progress of its life, how different is the first period of its being from the second, and both from the parent insect. Its changes are an inexplicable enigma to us: we see a green caterpillar, furnished with sixteen feet, creeping, hairy, and feeding upon the leaves of a plant; this is changed into chrysalis, smooth, of a golden lustre, hanging suspended to a fixed point, without feet, and subsisting without food; this insect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... Butterfly may be collected upon the milkweed and brought in, so that the whole life history or metamorphosis of this beautiful insect, from the egg through the larva or caterpillar stage and the pupa or chrysalis stage to the adult butterfly, may be watched. The larvae or caterpillar must be supplied daily with fresh milkweed leaves. Other butterflies and moths and many other insects may ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a secret rage. He used to walk through the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... our life on earth is a larval state of greedy helplessness, and that death is a pupa- sleep out of which we should soar into everlasting light. They tell us that during its sentient existence, the outer body should be thought of only as a kind of caterpillar, and thereafter as a chrysalis;—and they aver that we lose or gain, according to our behavior as larvae, the power to develop wings under the mortal wrapping. Also they tell us not to trouble ourselves about the fact that we see no Psyche-imago detach itself from ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... utterly ungainly creations that were built around one half of the sidewall of the Shed. In shape, its upper part was like the top half of a loaf of bread. In motion, here, it rested on some sort of wheeled vehicle, and it was reared up like an indignant caterpillar, and a blue-white flame squirted out of its tail, with coy and frolicsome ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... is the precious harvest of the earth, But once, when harvest waved upon a land, The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar, Locusts, and all the swarming, foul-born broods, Fastened upon it with swift, greedy jaws, And turned the harvest into pestilence, Until men said, What profits ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... rosy palm,— As the loathsome touch seemed yet to thrill her, She cried,—"Oh, mother, I found on my arm A horrible, crawling caterpillar!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various |
