286 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



the Liparians, but not so widely feathered in the males, and 

 very narrowly feathered beneath in the females. The feelers 

 of some are rather longer than common, and are thrust forward 

 like a beak ; but more often they are very short and small. 

 The tongue, for the most part, is invisible. Their wings cover 

 the back like a steep roof, the under pair, being wider than 

 common, are not entirely covered by the upper wings, but pro- 

 ject beyond them at the sides of the body when closed. Their 

 caterpillars live on trees and shrubs, and some kinds herd to- 

 gether in considerable numbers or swarms ; they make their co- 

 coons mostly or entirely of silk. The winged insect is assisted 

 in its attempts to come forth, after its last change, by a reddish 

 colored liquid, which softens the end of its cocoon, and which, 

 as some say, is discharged from its own mouth, or, as others 

 with greater probability assert, escapes from the inside of the 

 chrysalis the moment that the included moth bursts the shell. 



To this group belong the caterpillars that swarm in the un- 

 pruned nurseries and neglected orchards of the slovenly and 

 improvident husbandman, and hang their many-coated webs 

 upon the wild cherry-trees that are suffered to spring up un- 

 checked by the wayside and encroach upon the borders of our 

 pastures and fields. The eggs, from which they are hatched, 

 are placed around the ends of the branches, forming a wide 

 kind of ring or bracelet, consisting of three or four hundred 

 eggs, in the form of short cylinders standing on their ends 

 close together, and covered with a thick coat of brownish 

 water-proof varnish.* The caterpillars come forth, with the 

 unfolding of the leaves of the apple and cherry tree, during 

 the latter part of April or the beginning of May. The first 

 signs of their activity appear in the formation of a little angu- 

 lar web or tent, somewhat resembling a spider's web, stretched 

 between the forks of the branches a little below the cluster of 

 eggs. Under the shelter of these tents, in making which they 

 all work together, the caterpillars remain concealed at all times 

 when not engaged in eating. In crawling from twig to twig 



* A good figure of a cluster of these eggs may be seen in the Boston Cultiva- 

 tor, Vol. X,, No. 10, for March 4, 1848. 



