CATERPTLLARS. 371 



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 the 

 l9,ckey caterpillars (^Clisiocampa neustria), which are what 

 naturalists terra polyphagous feeders, that is, they do not 

 confine themselves to a particular sort of tree, but relish 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 observed them 

 on the poplar or the elder. 



Another of what may be appropriately termed the en- 

 camping caterpillars, of a much smaller size, and of a dif- 

 ferent genus, is the small ermine ( Yponomeuta padelld), 

 which does not, besides, feed quite so indiscriminately; 

 but when the bird-cherry (^Prunus padns), its 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 

 respect to such caterpillars as feed on different plants, 

 Eeaumur 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.* We verified this, in 

 the case of the caterpillar in question, upon two different 

 nests which we took, in 180(3, from the bird-cherry at 

 Crawfordland, in Ayrshire. Upon bringing these to Kil- 

 marnock, we could not readily supply them with the leaves 

 of this tree ; and having then onl}^ a slight acquaintance 

 with the habits of insects, and imagining they would eat 

 any sort of leaf, we tried them with almost everything 

 green in the vicinity of the town ; but they refused to touch 

 any which we offered them. After they had fasted several 

 days, we at length Y)rocured some fresh branches of the 

 bird-cherry, with which they gorged themselves so that 

 most of them died. Last smnmer (1829) we again tried a 

 colony of these caterpillars, found on a seedling plum-tree 

 at Lee, in Kent, with blackthorn, hawthorn, and many 



* De Geer, Mem. i. 319. 



