Moreover, I could not continue my experiments.

On the ninth day, exhausted by her fruitless period of waiting, the female died, having first deposited her barren eggs upon the woven wire of her cage.

Lacking a female, nothing could be done until the following year.
I determined next time to take suitable precautions and to make all preparations for repeating at will the experiments already made and others which I had in mind.

I set to work at once, without delay.
In the summer I began to buy caterpillars at a halfpenny apiece.
The market was in the hands of some neighbouring urchins, my habitual providers.

On Friday, free of the terrors of grammar, they scoured the fields, finding from time to time the Great Peacock caterpillar, and bringing it to me clinging to the end of a stick.