NYMPHALINAE: VANESSA CAllDUI. 483 



itself a separate nest (81 : 10) generally near the summit of a stalk, and 

 now on the upper surface of the leaf; it spins a thin web on the surface, 

 near the edge, if it be a broad-leaved plant, and then draws over a portion 

 of the leaf by means of threads, completing the covering with a silken 

 tent ; when half-grown it forsakes this and forms a more perfect nest, 

 drawing together leaves, buds, and bitten fragments by the same process, 

 so as to form an irregular oval cavity, about thirty-five millimetres long 

 vertically, and a little more than half as broad. The narrow, irregular, 

 crisped and rather distant leaves of the thistle, on which it is most fre- 

 quently found, cannot, however, be made to cover even a single caterpillar, 

 and the spaces are closed^^by a thin open web, through which the inmate 

 can readily be seen, but which is sufficiently close to retain all the rejecta- 

 menta of the caterpillar. The nest is usually covered, at least in the up- 

 per half, with spines of the plant, evidently bitten off for the purpose ; 

 there is an opening in the nest, near or at the summit, just large enough 

 to allow the larva to emerge, apparently made by eating away the web. 

 The leaves which penetrate the nest are not lined with silk, but the web 

 is frequently stretched across the inequalities of the leaf. Within this habi- 

 tation the larva rests with its head downward, like its congener, V. ata- 

 lanta ; but, unlike it, when its earlier stages are passed, it feeds upon the 

 upper surface and parenchyma of the leaf, without touching the under 

 cuticle, and when these are consumed, it crawls out to seek its fortune and 

 weave a more commodious mansion ; when, however, it has reached its 

 fourth stage, it devours the entire leaf, and not the upper cuticle alone. 

 If it is born upon one of the broader-leaved forms of thistle it constructs 

 its home by first weaving a silken web across the narrower parts of the 

 crinkled leaf, uniting the upper edges but drawing them together very 

 slightly. In this passage it lives until nearly half grown, when it makes 

 a web-nest difficult to describe from its irregularity ; but it is a very thin 

 silken enclosure of an oval flattened form, with an opening at any point, 

 the web covering the outer surface of a leaf, with its projecting lobes 

 curled over into the web ; this is more or less foul with excrement and bit- 

 ten off spines, while the included parts of the leaf have been despoiled of 

 their parenchyma. When still older several leaves near together may be- 

 come involved, but the leaves when eaten are bitten completely through. 



When about to undergo its transformation, the caterpillar does not wan- 

 der far, and frequently remains upon the plant Avhich has nourished it. A 

 specimen bred in confinement, but which had abundance of room, formed 

 of partially dried leaves, connected by open, angular, irregular, silken 

 meshes, averaging about four millimetres long, a sort of cocoon, of no 

 definite shape, but larger than its previous nest, and which it attached to 

 the top of the cage. In another instance one underwent its transforma- 

 tion within its nest (81 : 10). 



