ns properly should be. Let us gently invade the little colony with
our finger-tip. Touch one never so gently and it instantly disappears.
Was ever thorn so deciduous? And now observe its fellows. Here one
slowly glides up the stem; another in the opposite direction; another
sideways. In a moment more the whole family have entirely disappeared,
as if by hocus-pocus, until we discover, by a change of our point of
view, that they have all congregated on the opposite side of the stem,
with an agility which would have done credit to the proverbial gray
squirrel.

This animated thorn is about a quarter of an inch long, and dark brown
in color, with two yellowish spots on the edge of its back.

Nor is this all the witchery of this bittersweet thorn. It is well worth
our further careful study. Seen collectively, the thorny rose branch is
instantly suggested, but occasionally, when we observe a single isolated
specimen, especially in the month of July, he will certainly masquerade
in an entirely new guise. Look! quick. Turn your magnifier hither on
this green shoot. No thorn this. Is it not rather a whole covey of
quail, mother and young creeping along the vine? Who would ever have
thought of a thorn! Turning now to our original group, how perfectly do
they take the hint, for are they not a family of tiny birds with long
necks and swelling breasts and drooping tails, verily like an autumn
brood of "Bob Whites"?

[Illustration]

But the little harlequin is as wary a bird as he was a thorn! No sooner
do we touch his head with our finger than with an audible "click" he is
off on a most agile jump, which he extends with buzzing wings, and is
even now perhaps aping a thorn among a little group of his fellows
somewhere among the larger bittersweet branches.

It is only as we capture one of the little protean acrobats between our
finger-tips and examine him with a magnifier that we can really make
"head or tail" of his queer anatomy. Even thus enlarged it is difficult
to get entirely rid of the idea of a bird. I have shown a group of the
insects in various attitudes, the position of the eyes alone serving as
a starting-point for our comprehension of his singular make-up. The tall
neck-like or thorn-like prominence is then seen to be a mere elongated
helmet, which is prolonged into a steep angle behind, so as to cover the
back of the creature like a peaked roof, a feature from which the
scientific name of this particular group of i