DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY 



Editor 1^ ^%l<r^'^^' 



A WINTER CATERPILLAR IN MAINE.* 

 By Edith M. Patch. 



Wandering adventurously over the snow in early spring, or during 

 thaw spells in winter, a caterpillar, clothed in a hairy coat of black 

 and yellow, challenges the interest of those who meet him ; for it 

 seems as if a traveler from the tropics had somehow been stranded 

 in the snows of Maine, and we wonder how he will fare. It is 

 indeed in the heat of equatorial America that most of his family** 

 are nurtured, but he, hardy creature, in spite of appearances, is no 

 chance guest, but a native of Maine, enured to what hardships our 

 climate imposes. 



Stiff and inactive, he hibernates through the winter, unless roused 

 by an unseasonable thaw that tricks him with a mistimed appetite 

 for a meal ; but not until the first blades of spring grass invite him 

 is he permitted to break his fast of many months. He then grows 

 steadily, though slowly, and undergoes the ordeal of molting twice 

 before he is ready for the cocoon. Perhaps nowhere in the wide 

 realm of life are the problems of growth more wonderfully worked 

 out than with the six-footed creatures known as insects or hexapods ; 

 and the molt of our grass caterpillar is worth thoughtful observation. 

 We find him in mid-April or later resting on a dry stubble, head 

 down, usually, and quiet. The hooks of his creeping "false" feet are 

 tangled in the thin silken molting mat he has previously spun over 

 the surface of his support. His six "true" feet are held up near his 

 head in a prayerful attitude. The segment behind his head is bulged 

 out as if a second head had been crowded back under the skin there. 

 That, indeed, is just what has happened, for the visible head is now 

 but a nearly empty skull from which a newly formed head is being 

 withdrawn, too large to be contained within the old skull and there- 

 fore pushed back into the skin behind the head — giving the larva a 

 swollen "neck." To anyone with a nice sympathy for caterpillars, 

 there is something pitiable about such a plight. For plight it is to 

 be equipped with two heads and able to use neither, — to fast in spite 



* Ctcnucha virginica. 



** Syntomidse. Amotidse. Zygaenidse. 



Note. — This insect because it can be watched in the spring and fall, while 

 school is in session, is a favorable species for nature study in Maine; and 

 because the cocoon and the moth stage reach into the summer months, it offers 

 a vacation amusement for such children as really become interested in its 

 career during the spring. A bulletin concerned with its economic status is 

 in preparation at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 



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