h in length. It is now firmly attached to the
plant. The opening is completely spun over with silk, and the case
becomes a cocoon for the winter; and a few of these September cocoons
are well worth gathering, if only to see the queer little moth which
will emerge from them the following spring.

[Illustration]

_A QUEER LITTLE FAMILY ON THE BITTERSWEET_

[Illustration]

In a recent half-hour's relaxation, while comfortably stretched in my
hammock upon the porch of my country studio, I was surprised with a
singular entertainment. I soon found myself most studiously engaged.
Entwining the corner post of the piazza, and extending for some distance
along the eaves, a luxuriant vine of bittersweet had made itself at
home. The currant-like clusters of green fruits, hanging in pendent
clusters here and there, were now nearly mature, and were taking on
their golden hue, and the long, free shoots of tender growth were
reaching out for conquest on right and left in all manner of graceful
curves and spirals. Through an opening in this shadowy foliage came a
glimpse of the hill-side slope across the valley upon whose verge my
studio is perched, and as my eye penetrated this pretty vista it was
intercepted by what appeared to be a shadowed portion of a rose branch
crossing the opening and mingling with the bittersweet stems. In my idle
mood I had for some moments so accepted it without a thought, and would
doubtless have left the spot with this impression had I not chanced to
notice that this stem, so beset with conspicuous thorns, was not
consistent in its foliage. My suspicions aroused, I suddenly realized
that my thorny stem was in truth merely a bittersweet branch in
masquerade, and that I had been "fooled" by a sly midget who had been an
old-time acquaintance of my boyhood, but whom I had long neglected.

Every one knows the climbing-bittersweet, or "waxwork" (_Celastrus
scandens_), with its bright berries hanging in clusters in the autumn
copses, each yellow berry having now burst open in thin sections and
exposed the scarlet-coated seeds. Almost any good-sized vine, if
examined early in the months of July and August, will show us the
thorns, and more sparingly until October, and queer thorns they are,
indeed! Here an isolated one, there two or three together, or perhaps a
dozen in a quaint family circle around the stem, their curved points
all, no matter how far separated, inclined in the same direction, as
thor