424 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



upon the martial city — an encampment of the National 

 Guards^ — whose canvas tents were pitched upon the 

 battle plain and swelling ridge over which the gallant 

 but fruitless charge of Pickett's corps was made, I 

 could plainly see that likeness to which our tent- 

 making caterpillar owes its popular name. The tent 

 here figured was about ten inches in diameter across 

 the base, and its height was nearly the same ; this is 

 about the average size, but many of the tents are 

 larger. 



" The holes through which the caterpillars enter are 

 near the extremities or angles of the nest, into which 

 they retreat at night, or in stormy weather, and dwell 

 when not feeding. They have regular times for feed- 

 ing, and may be seen marching out of their tent-doors 

 in processions usuall}' twice a da}', forenoon and after- 

 noon. These processions move in single or double 

 column, over sidewalks, along fences, trunks and 

 branches of trees, until they reach their proper food- 

 plant which they attack with a voracity that brings 

 serious damage when the nests are numerous. 



" In five or six weeks they mature, when they leave 

 the trees under the resistless impulse of Nature, and 

 wander about in all directions seeking suitable places 

 in which to hide during their crysalis stage. Pre- 

 sently you will find them under the cap-boards and 

 cross-rails of fences, in angles, recesses, and beneath 

 projections of various sorts, spinning tough, yellow 

 oval cocoons enclosed within a slight shelter of threads. 

 Within these cocoons the larvai change to brown 



