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There they lay until Mother Carey came to touch them with her magic wand, so each became a crawler-dwarf, then a bundle-baby, and at last a dancing fairy. But the Green Dancer did not know that she knew only that it was a glorious thing to be alive, and fly, and to dance in the moonlight.
Sleepers woke from underground, as Mother Carey's silent trumpeters went bugling ahead of her, and her winged horse, the Warm Wind, came sweeping across the meadows, with the white world greening as he came. The bundle-baby of the Horn-devil woke up. He was cramped and sleepy, but soon awake. Then he knew that he was a prisoner, bound up in silken cords of strength.
"Good," said the All-Mother: "then, in this way it shall be. You little Red-Knobs shall have what you so much wish, you shall hang up in a dry loft where not a drop of dew even shall touch you in your bundle-baby sleep. And you little Yellow-Knobs shall hang under a limb where every rain that comes shall drench your outer skin." And she left them.
Taken together they make a large group that are called Scale-wings, because they alone among insects, have scales or tiny feathers like dust on the wings. Butterflies are Scale-wings that fly by day, and have club-shaped feelers; they mostly fold one wing against the other when they alight, and in the chrysalis, or bundle-baby stage, they are naked and look like an African ear-drop.
When the time came to hang up, Red-Knobs was led to a place as dry as could be, under a shed and swung his bundle-baby hammock from the rafters. Yellow-Knobs hung up his hammock under a twig in the rose garden. The winter passed, and the springtime came with the great awakening day. Each of the bundle-babies awoke from his hammock and broke his bonds.
But the hammock, with its sleeper, landed in a deep bed of leaves, and lay there all winter, quite safe and warm. Then when the springtime sun came over the hill, Mother Carey came a-riding on the Warm Wind, and waving her wand. She stopped and kissed the sleeping bundle-baby, just as the Prince kissed the Sleeping Beauty, and instantly the baby awoke. Then happened the strangest thing.
After about two weeks the great change takes place, and the bundle-baby or chrysalis opens to let out the splendid red-brown Butterfly, of nearly the same red as a Cock Robin's breast in springtime, with lines and embroidery of black and its border set with pearls. Near the middle of the hind wing is a dark spot like a thickening of one rib.
When I was a very small boy, I saw my father bring in from the orchard a ragged looking thing like parchment wrapped up with some tangled hair; it was really the bundle-baby of this Moth.
Moths are Scale-wings that fly by night, and have switch or feather-shaped feelers; they keep their wings spread open when they alight, and in the bundle-baby stage, they are wrapped in a cocoon. There are some that do not keep to these rules, but they are rare, and the shape of the feelers will tell whether it is a Moth or a Butterfly.
First it is an egg, then a greedy grub, next a hanging bundle-baby, and last a beautiful winged fairy, living a life of freedom and joy. In the picture I have shown the butterflies life size, but you must add the colour as you get each one to copy. The first is the White or Cabbage Butterfly that flits over our gardens all summer long.
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