RAVAGES OF CATERPILLARS 205 



the morning- perched in the midst of their colonies, 

 and devouring' them by d( zens*. 



Those caterpillars v\hi(h teed upon fruit-trees and 

 hedge-shrubs are still more likely to attract attention ; 

 since, when any of these are abundant, it is scarcely 

 possible to stir out of doors without observing them. 

 Thus, in the suburbs of London, in the summer of 

 1829, not only the orchards and gardens, but every 

 hedge, swarmed with tlie lackey-caterpillars {Clisio- 

 campa neusiricC), which are what naturalists term 

 polyphagous feeders, that is, they do not confine them- 

 selves to a particular sort of tree, but relis>h a great 

 number. The hawthorn, the blackthorn, and the 

 oak, however, seem to be most to their taste ; while 

 they are rare on the willow, and we have never ob- 

 served them on the poplar or the elder. 



Another of what may be appropriately termed 

 the encamping caterpillars, of a much smaller size, 

 and of a different genus, is the small ermine (Jljoo- 

 nomtuta padella), which does not, besides, feed quite 

 so indiscriminately ; but when the bird-cherry {Pru- 

 nuspadus), rts peculiar food, is not to be had, it 

 will put up with blackthorn, plum-tree, hawthorn, 

 and almost any sort of orchard fruit-tree. With re- 

 spect to such caterpillars as feed on different plants, 

 Reaumur and De Geer make the singular remark, 

 that in most cases they would only eat the sort of 

 plant upon which they were originally hatched f. 

 We verified this, in the case of the caterpillar in ques 

 lion, upon two different nests which we took in 1806, 

 from the bird-cherry at Crawfordland, in Ayrshire. 

 Upon bringing these to Kilmarnock, we could not 

 readily supply them with the leaves of this tree ; and 

 having then only a slight acquaintance with the 

 habits of insects, and imagining they would eat any 

 sort of leaf, we tried them with almost every thing 

 * J. R. t De Geer, Mem. i. 319. 



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