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This Book List Sectory 15
Page 10
After the planting, First Man, First Woman, Wolf Chief, and Mountain Lion Chief each made a speech advising the creation of a number of mountains similar to the ones they had had in the lower world. This was agreeable to all, and accordingly the work was begun. The handfuls of earth caught up hurriedly from the tops of the mountains below as they were driven off by the rising flood were taken to the cardinal points and deposited in the same relative positions, an equal distance apart, as were the submerged mountains from which the earth had been taken. First Si{~COMBINING BREVE~}snajini, the White Mountain, was made in the east; then Tsotzilh, the Blue Mountain, in the south; next Dokooeslit, the Yellow Mountain, in the west, and lastly Depe{~COMBINING BREVE~}nsa, the Black Mountain, in the north. Having yet portions of each handful of earth remaining, two more mountains, called Choili and Tzilhnuhodihli, were made near the point of emergence in the middle of the rectangle formed by the creation of the other four. To give each mountain color, white shell, turquoise, abalone, and jet were used for those at the cardinal points, while the middle two were colored with a mixture of all these substances.
It was in this very year that Kieft came to supersede Van Twiller, who had given just cause for complaint by his eagerness to enrich himself at the expense of the West India Company. During the administration of Kieft occurred the long and doubtful conflict with the natives detailed in the succeeding chapter. Arbitrary and exacting, he drove the Indians to extremities, and involved the Dutch settlements in a war which for a time threatened their destruction. Not till 1645 was peace re-established, and in 1647 the unpopular governor was recalled. In 1647 not more than three hundred fighting men remained in the whole province. Its total population was between fifteen hundred and two thousand. In 1652 New Amsterdam had a population of seven or eight hundred. In 1664 Stuyvesant put the number in the province at ten thousand, about fifteen hundred of whom were in New Amsterdam.
A comparatively small number of insects pass the winter in the larval or active stage of the young. Of these, perhaps the best known is the brown "woolly worm" or "hedgehog caterpillar," as it is familiarly called. It is thickly covered with stiff black hairs on each end, and with reddish hairs on the middle of the body. These hairs appear to be evenly and closely shorn, so as to give the animal a velvety look; and as they have a certain degree of elasticity, and the caterpillar curls up at the slightest touch, it generally manages to slip away when taken into the hand. Beneath loose bark, boards, rails, and stones, this caterpillar may be found in mid-winter, coiled up and apparently lifeless. On the first bright, sunny days of spring it may be seen crawling rapidly over the ground, seeking the earnest vegetation which will furnish it a literal "breakfast." In April or May the chrysalis, surrounded by a loose cocoon formed of the hairs of the body interwoven with coarse silk, may be found in situations similar to those in which the larva passed the winter. From this, the perfect insect, the Isabella tiger moth, _Pyrrharctia isabella_ Smith, emerges about the last of June. It is a medium sized moth, dull orange in color, with three rows of small black spots on the body, and some scattered spots of the same color on the wings.
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