wed a
neat crescent out of it. There was method in his gnawing. He fixed his
claspers firmly to the stalk, then stretched his head as far as he could
reach, and nibbled the leaf edge backwards. When his feet reached his
claspers, he commenced afresh.

Before the winter he had only fed at night; now he fed from sunrise to
sunset, and at night as well. He fattened steadily, and in proportion,
growing more slug-like every day. His horns but emphasized the likeness.
He carried them well forward, and, at his rare sleeping intervals, they
lay flat against the leaf. Thus with his swollen waist he seemed to fall
away both ends. Three times he outgrew his coat. Each time he had eaten
till it stretched to bursting point. Each time the process of disrobing
was the same.

He dragged his slow bulk to some thick mass of leaves, selected the
innermost of them, and spun a web of silk upon its surface. From this he
hung himself head downwards. His weight helped him, and, in due course,
the old skin split along his back, and he emerged resplendent in a fresh,
untarnished, elastic livery.

Each moult was marked by some embellishment. Rusty olive gave place to
pale sap green, this in turn to the green of the young willow-leaf, and
this again to the green of lush grass. Nor was the change in body colour
all. His sides in time were decked with slanting stripes of yellow. A
V-shaped orange girdle marked his waist. Its buckle was a tiny splotch of
crimson. His horns were tipped with russet brown, and head and tail alike
were faintly tinged with blue.

Yet, for all his rainbow tints, Nature had decreed that he should live
invisible. To this end she had coloured him to match his food plant. The
lines of yellow on his sides broke the monotony of green, as veins break
the monotony of a leaf. The blue about him was sister to the blue of
summer that played amid the foliage with quivering transparent lights and
shadows.

Nor did the cunning harmony end here. In form as well as tint he cheated
observation. His outline, as he lay at rest, formed the most perfect
outline of a twisted leaf.

[Illustration: GROWING MORE SLUG-LIKE EVERY DAY. FOR ALL HIS RAINBOW
TINTS, NATURE HAD DECREED THAT HE SHOULD LIVE INVISIBLE.]

Birds passed him by unnoticed. Once, and once only, the ichneumon marked
him down.

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
vicio