MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



and devouring all of them to the glue by which they were 

 fastened. 



They were given their choice of oak, alder, sumac, elm, 

 cherry, and hickory. The majority of them seemed to 

 prefer the hickory. Part of them were kept in the house 

 and fed on fresh leaves, and the remainder were placed 

 on trees outdoors, and guarded from birds by a covering 

 of scrim. They moulted on the fifth day for the first 

 time, and changed to a brown colour. Every five or six 

 days they repeated the process, growing larger and of 

 stronger colour with each moult, and developing a cover- 

 ing of long white hairs. Part of these moulted four 

 times, others five. 



At past six weeks of age they were exactly as Mr. 

 Eisen had described them to me. Those I kept in con- 

 finement pupated on a bed of baked gravel, in a tin bucket. 

 It is imperative to bake any earth or sand used for them 

 to kill pests invisible to the eye, that might bore into the 

 pupa cases and destroy the moths. 



I watched the transformation with intense interest. 

 After the caterpillars had finished eating they travelled 

 in search of a place to burrow for a day or two. Then 

 they gave up, and lay quietly on the sand. The colour 

 darkened hourly, the feet and claspers seemed to draw 

 inside, and one morning on going to look there were some 

 greenish brown pupae. They shone as if freshly var- 

 nished, as indeed they were, for the substance provided to 



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