If you want to find the caterpillar of this insect you must look for it on different kinds of meadow-grass. It has a big brown head and a dull green body, with a dark line running along the back dotted with black. And underneath, on the hinder part of its body, it has a number of white spots. When it is fully grown it fastens three or four grass-stems together by means of silken threads, and then turns to a rather long and thin chrysalis of a pale brown colour between them. Look out for the butterfly on bright sunny days in May, and again in August. [Illustration: PLATE XVIII 1. Eyed Hawk 2. Eyed Hawk Caterpillar] PLATE XVII THE SMALL SKIPPER (4) This queer little butterfly, which is about half the size of the “large skipper,” is very nearly as common. But it only makes its appearance once in the year instead of twice, generally about the middle of July. The best places in which to look for it are grassy banks by the sides of lanes and open places in woods. But it is so small that unless you look very carefully you will most likely pass it by. The male butterfly is not quite like the female, for he has a thin black line running along the middle of his front wings. This butterfly lays its eggs on different kinds of grass, and when they hatch, the little caterpillars feed for a few weeks, and then find their way into some snug retreat, in which they sleep all through the autumn and winter. Early in the spring they come out from their hiding-places and begin to feed again; and by about the beginning of June they are ready to turn into chrysalids. If ever you should happen to find them you may know them at once, for they are green in colour, with six white stripes running all the way along their bodies. And besides this they are quite fat in the middle, and quite thin at the head and the tail. PART II MOTHS PLATE XVIII THE EYED HAWK MOTH (1 and 2) The “hawk moths” are so called because their flight is so swift and strong, very much like that of a hawk. Most of them come out soon after sunset on warm summer evenings, and you may often see them hovering in front of such flowers as honeysuckle, and verbenas, and petunias, with their long trunks poked deeply into the blossoms in order that they may suck up their sweet juices. But if you move in the very least they dart away at once, so quickly that you cannot even tell in which direction they have gone.