Early in spring, we see, crossing the paths, a briskly-moving caterpillar who inspires repugnance by his ferocious hairiness, which ripples like ripe corn. The ancient naturalists, with their artless and picturesque nomenclature, called him the Hedgehog. The term is worthy of the creature, which, in the moment of danger, rolls itself up like a Hedgehog, presenting its spiny armour on all sides to the enemy. On its back is a dense mixture of black hairs and hairs of ashen-gray; while on the sides and fore-part of the body is a stiff mane of bright russet. Black, grey or russet, all this fierce-looking coat is heavily barbed. One hesitates to touch this horror with the finger-tips. Still, encouraged by my example, seven-year-old Paul, with his tender child’s skin, gathers handfuls of the repulsive insect with no more apprehension than if he were picking a bunch of violets. He fills his boxes with it; he rears it on elm-leaves and handles it daily, for he knows that from this frightful creature he will one day obtain a superb Moth (Chelonia caja, Linn.), clad in scarlet velvet, with the lower wings red and the upper white, sprinkled with brown spots. What resulted from the child’s familiarity with the shaggy creature? Not even a trace of itching on his delicate skin. I do not speak of mine, which is tanned by the years. In the osier-beds of our local stream, the rushing Aygues, a thorny shrub abounds which, at the advent of autumn, is covered with an infinity of very sour red berries. Its crabbed boughs, which bear but little verdure, are hidden under their clusters of vermilion balls. It is the sallow thorn or sea buckthorn (Hippophaë rhamnoides). In April, a very hairy but rather pretty caterpillar lives at the expense of this shrub’s budding leaves. He has on his back five dense tufts of hair, set side by side and arranged like the bristles of a brush, tufts deep-black in the centre and white at the edges. He waves two divergent plumes in front of him and sports a third on his crupper, like a feathery tail. These three are black hair-pencils of extreme delicacy. His greyish Moth, flattened motionless on the bark, stretches his long fore-legs, one against the other, in front of him. You would take them, at a first glance, for antennae of exaggerated proportions. This pose of the extended limbs has won the insect the scientific label of Orgyia, arm’s length; and also the vulgar and more expressive denomination of Patte étendue, or outstretched paw.