268 GOLD-TAIL CATERPILLARS. 



not to support it. But what has she in common, or what 

 has she to do, with the greedy ruthless strippers of the noble 

 tree she rests on ? Everything. She has (with them) a com- 

 mon origin : she is the Gold-tail moth, and they were the 

 Gold-tail caterpillars, of which she once was one, and of a 

 brood of which she will most likely become the parent. 



We would fain have been able to carry to an end the analogy 

 between our Insect ravagers of foliage, and the human ravagers 

 of earth ; but when the latter have been summoned from the 

 scenes where they have reaped their harvests of devastation, 

 who can picture them as assuming, in a higher sphere, the 

 white and spotless robes of innocence ? There remains but 

 little more to be said, en naturalist e, descriptive of the Gold- 

 tail, either in its form of destruction or of beauty. In the 

 former, however, that of caterpillar, we shall describe its 

 " black and scarlet uniform ' with somewhat more preci- 

 sion, and for a reason which will presently appear. Its body- 

 coat of black velvet, is enlivened by two stripes of brilliant 

 scarlet down the middle of the back, a row of white, resem- 

 bling embroidery, running along each side; and again below 

 these, two other scarlet lines. The head and six-clawed feet 

 are sinning black, the hinder and intermediate legs yellowish, 

 and the whole body beset with tufts of gold-brown hair. Now 

 upon these hairs, which we, since last May, have had good 

 reason to remember, hangs a tale, of which "Noli me tangere'' 

 is the moral. Before having by experience learnt it, we one 



