It is as I thought. The day passes and the four caterpillars remain bare. Next day, however, one, one alone, decides to clothe himself. His work is a tiara with metallic facets, in which the light plays with flashes of every colour of the rainbow. It is very rich, very sumptuous, but mightily heavy and cumbrous. Walking becomes laborious under that load of metal. Even so must a Byzantine emperor have progressed at ceremonies of state, after donning his gold-worked dalmatic. Poor little creature! More sensible than man, you did not select that ridiculous magnificence of your own free will; it was I who forced it on you. Here, to make amends, is a disk of sorghum-pith. Fling off your proud tiara, thrust it from you quickly and place in its stead a cotton night-cap, which is much healthier. This is done on the second day. The Psyche has his favourite materials when starting as a manufacturer: a vegetable lint collected from any ligneous scrap well softened by the air, a lint usually supplied by the old roof of the maternal hut. In the absence of the regulation fabric, he is able to make use of animal velvet, in particular of the scaly fluff of a Moth. In case of necessity, he does not shrink from acts of sheer madness: he weaves mineral matter, so urgent is his need to clothe himself. This need outweighs that of nourishment. I take a young caterpillar from his grazing-ground, a leaf of very hairy hawkweed which, after many attempts, I have found to suit him as food because of its green blade and as wool because of its white fleece. I take him, I say, from his refectory and leave him to fast for a couple of days. Then I strip him and put him back on his leaf. And I see him, unmindful of eating, in spite of his long fast, first labouring to make himself a new coat by collecting the hairs of the hawkweed. His appetite will be satisfied afterwards. Is he then so susceptible to cold? We are in the midst of the dog-days. The sun shoots down a fiery torrent that brings the wild concert of the Cicadæ up to fever-pitch. In the baking heat of the study where I am questioning my animals, I have flung off hat and necktie and am working in my shirt-sleeves; and, in this oven, what the Psyche clamours for is, above all things, a warm covering. Well, little shiverer, I will satisfy you! I expose him to the direct rays of the sun, on the window-ledge. This time, it is too much of a good thing; I have gone beyond all bounds. The sun-scorched one wriggles about, flourishes his abdomen, always a sign of discomfort. But the making of the hawkweed cassock is not suspended on this account; on the contrary, it is pursued more hurriedly than ever. Could this be because of the excessive light? Is not the cotton-wool bag a retreat wherein the caterpillar isolates himself, sheltering from the importunities of broad daylight, and gently digests and sleeps? Let us get rid of the light, while retaining a warm temperature.