INSECTS AT WORK AND PLAY. 



137 



Many caterpillars are protected by mimicry. 

 The loopers, as they are called, fix themselves by 

 their hind legs to a branch, and by making their 

 bodies stand out rigidly from it give themselves 

 the appearance of little twigs, as shown in the 

 illustrations on page 139. 



The devastation wrought by 

 butterflies, moths, and beetles 

 in the caterpillar stage 

 of their existence 

 amongst plants 

 is s o m e- 

 times ap- 



MIMICKING 

 GRASS MOTH. 



/ 



palling. Whole 

 forests are de- 

 nuded of their leaves, 

 and hedgerows transfigured 

 in their appearance from the vernal 

 wealth of summer to the beggarly 

 bareness and brown desolation of 

 winter. 



Our first illustration (p. 140) shows 

 a portion of a common ragwort killed by caterpillars 

 of the Cinnabar moth, and the second (p. 141) a 

 colony of processionals destroying a hazel leaf — 

 the ninth attacked in their all-consuming advance 

 from the end of the branch. 



The speed at which these creatures can eat 

 is nothing less than marvellous. Last spring I 

 made some observations on the gastronomical 



