The light is a lure for prey to satisfy a voracious appetite. The lovely strings of pearls are modifications of the spider’s web. Nature has provided few other creatures with so intricate and ingenious a food-gathering mechanism as that which enables this *none* to survive in its strange environment Here evolution has schemed in an unique way to ensure the preservation of a species which apparently serves no purpose in the economy of nature except to procreate a beauty spot The floor of the glow worm grotto is a subterranean branch of a river. The water is warm and almost absolutely motionless, for no breezes penetrate that far under the mountain. Thus it is an almost ideal spot for all sorts of insects to lay their eggs. There is a high probability that the great majority of them will hatch. As the young rise from the water they are attracted by the star-filled heavens overhead. They fly toward them as moths to a lamp. The same is true of many of the small adult insects, some of which are essentially microscopic. Once such an insect is caught on one of the threads it is lost beyond all hope. There it sticks, struggle as it may. The vibrations caused by its struggles attract the attention of the glow worm which quickly winds up the hanging thread. If it is not hungry at the moment it has been observed to play with its victim, drawing in and then letting out the line after the manner of a fisherman. Finally the prey is drawn into the silken sheath and entirely devoured, chitinous shell and all. It is not merely sucked, as is the fashion of the spider or the fly. The “lamps” apparently are under an extremely delicate nervous control. The strings of pearls suspended loosely in the air must be extraordinarily sensitive to sound waves. The instant they pick up any sound unusual for the cavern the lights automatically go out. Stranger still is the fact that the darkening of all the stars is nearly simultaneous. This, of course, is a safety measure. Any disturbance of the cave routine means danger for the transparent caterpillars. In order to see the star-lit heavens effect the row boat in which one enters the glow worm grotto must be handled by skilled oarsmen so that there is no sound of splashing water. Visitors are warned not even to whisper, lest some string be disturbed and instantaneously transmit the warning to all the others. _Parenthood Among Penguins_ One of nature’s miracles is the egg-laying and incubating of the emperor penguin in the darkness of the Antarctic night at temperatures of from 50 to 80 degrees below zero.