The winds had blown the cocoons
agianst the limbs and worn away the projecting edges of the leaves,
but the midribs and veins showed plainly. In all we had half a dozen
of htese cocoons gathered from different parts of the swamp, and we
found them dangling from a twig of willow or hawthorn, by a small
piece of spinning. During the winter these occupied the place of
state in the conservatory, and were watched every day. They were
kept in the coolest spot, but where the sun reached them at times.
Always in watering the flowers, the hose was turned on them, because
they would have been in the rain if they had been left out of doors,
and conditions should be kept as natural as possible.
Close time for emergence I became very uneasy, because the
conservatory was warm; so I moved them to my sleeping room, the
coolest in the cabin, where a fireplace, two big windows and an
outside door, always open, provide natural atmospheric conditions,
and where I would be sure to see them every day. I hung the twigs
over a twine stretched from my dresser to the window-sill.
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