NESTS AXD OTHER STRUCTURES. 1455 



edges curl toward each other and soiiiL'tiiuLvs to meet and tliiis to tbrin an 

 open nest. 



The most common form of nest, however, is that in which different parts 

 of the same leaf or adjacent parts of different leaves are fastened together 

 by silken strands. The simplest and weakest of tliese are made by the 

 caterpillars of Polygonia faunas and Vanessa atalanta, which fasten to- 

 gether very weakly the opposite edges of a single large leaf so as just to 

 make them meet ; but the threads are so slight that they are ruptured with the 

 slightest effort. The caterpillar within having thus secured a shelter seems 

 loth to leave it and makes its meals from its own dwelling, until having 

 literally eaten itself out of house and home it is forced to venture fortli and 

 construct another. 



Another form of nest made from a single leaf is constructed by all the 

 higher skippers, Hesperidi, in early life, and by many of them throughout 

 life, by folding over a little piece of leaf, and fastening the edge to the oppo- 

 site surface by a few loose strands of silk ; to effect this they first bite a 

 little channel into the leaf at just such a place as to leave a fragment of 

 leaf neither too large nor too small to serve as a roof when thev shall 

 have turned it over ; often they have to cut two channels in order to pro- 

 cure a flap sufficiently small for their purposes ; and it is curious to watch 

 one of these tender creatures, just as soon as it has devoured its effST-shell, 

 struggling with a tough oak-leaf to build for itself a house. These nests 

 are much more firmly made, the silken fastenings being composed of many 

 strands often very tough. On leaving one nest to construct a larger, the 

 caterpillar always, I believe, first bites off the threads of the old nest and gives 

 the flap a chance to resume its position, which however, it rarely fully does. 

 AVhen older many of these same skippers find a single leaf of their food- 

 plant too small to conceal them, and so they draw several leaves together 

 just as they grow upon the plant, and retaining them in the desired place 

 by silken bands, live within the leafy bower. This mode of construction 

 is a<:lopted almost from the first by the Pamphilidi which feed on grasses, the 

 proximity of adjoining blades near the base atfljrding a good chance to 

 attach them together, while a cluster of blades furnishes a similar chance 

 to construct the somewhat tubular nest they require when they have grown 

 large and fat. 



A nest composed of several leaves is not made by many other of our 

 butterflies. Vanessa atalanta, however, especially when it is more than 

 half grown, finds it easier to attach neighboring leaves of the thickly 

 growing nettle, than to find one sufficiently free to use it only ; so that 

 fully one-half of the nests of the larger caterpillars are made from a num- 

 ber of leaves : the nest is always roomy, capable of housing several cater- 

 pillars, though never containing more than one. 



The nesting habits of V. atalanta are shared by the other species of 



