44 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



Again, in neglected fields or pastures, you may wade through 

 thousands of crowded plants with rarely a sight of a larva, or 

 examine closely the great patches of Croton in the woods with 

 little reward for your trouble. 



It is by the roadside, in the cultivated fields, or along the sandy 

 or gravelly beds of streams that the plants seem especially in- 

 viting to the females, and thrifty isolated weeds are often com- 

 pletely defoliated by the larvae in late Summer. 



Where the larvae are abundant an occasional pupa is found 

 suspended beneath a shelter made by fastening two or three 

 leaves together by their edges with an underlining of silk, but 

 search among neighboring stones and chunks fails to disclose 

 chrysalids, a fact that sets one to wondering if the larvae ever 

 leaves its food-plant to suspend for pupation. I have never seen 

 a larva on the ground, yet they must sometimes travel from plant 

 to plant, as a few caterpillars soon defoliate a young Croton plant, 

 and such leafless weeds are often seen without even a place for 

 the suspension of a pupa. 



In the rearing jars more than half of the larvae, just prior to 

 suspension, manifest no more activity than they have during their 

 sluggish larva-hood, but commence at once to construct a shelter, 

 while a much smaller number spin ladders of silk up the glass 

 sides and suspend from the underside of the cover at the top. 



The young larva, as soon as it begins to eat, commences the 

 construction of a perch much as the larva of Limenitis is known 

 to make, by using waste bits of leaf and excrement, fastened and 

 stiffened with silk. This perch is usually at the apex of the leaf, 

 but once I found two perches on the same leaf, and one was 

 lateral. The little caterpillar rests on thi perch when not feed- 

 ing, and it serves, undoubtedly, for protection to the delicate 

 creature against its keen-eyed enemies whatever they may be. 



At the second molt the larva has developed a new building in- 

 stinct. After selecting a suitable leaf it draws the edges together, 

 securing them with silk, and takes refuge in this retreat. In 

 feeding, the larva usually crawls out upon the stem to an adjoin- 

 ing leaf, but quite often, in its sluggishness, it attacks the base 

 of its shelter, literally devouring its own home. 



A young caterpillar seems to have no idea of the fitness of 

 things, and constructs an abode large enough for a full grown 

 "worm," secreting itself in the smaller end of its house, which. 



