10 THE COMMONER UUTrERFLlES. 



the Qgg is then commonly laid at or near the extreme tip of 

 the leaf) which devour the apical portion of the leaf, leav- 

 ing the midrib untouched, and percli themselves upon this 

 midrib after having attached to it by a few threads a small 

 packet of bits of leaf and frass which is moved by every 

 breath of wind, — probaljly to distract the attention of its 

 enemies from itself. 



Others construct shelters more or less complicated. 

 Some merely spin transverse threads across the floor of a 

 leaf, causing its sides to curl, and then recline, half hidden, 

 in the shallow trough; others make it so complete that 

 the edges meet and the leaf forms a cylinder; still others 

 fasten the opposite edges by silk and by biting weaken the 

 resistant ribs and also the main rib so that the leaf droops; 

 others bite channels into the leaf at two distant points and 

 turn the flap thus formed over upon the leaf, securing it 

 in place by silken strands; while for winter use the partly 

 grown caterpillar of the later brood of Basilarchia and 

 some allied genera not only coils a leaf into a cylinder but 

 lines it within and without with silk, leaves a ledge to crawl 

 out upon, and secures the leaf to the twig by strong silken 

 fastenings. In nearly all these cases the caterpillar seems 

 to rest upon the upper surface of a leaf and curl the sides 

 upward, very rarely the reverse. 



But there are others which fasten several leaves together, 

 generally very slightly, to form a leafy bower, or in the 

 case of grasses a tubular burrow; and in a few instances, 

 as in Vanessa himtera, bits of the inflorescence of the plant 

 are caught in the slight meshes of the net to make a more 

 perfect concealment. Among our Larger Skippers many 

 which live half their life in a nest formed of a single leaf 

 finish it in a bower made of many. 



Social caterpillars often construct nests in company, 

 which then often embrace in an irregular web the whole 

 or nearly the whole of a branch of the food-plant. Usually 



