NESTS MADE BY CATERPILLARS 101 



concciilment, are very generally made by those 

 caterpillars of butterflies which are gregarious, but 

 there is one kind made by New England social 

 caterpillars which has no such purpose and which 

 is perhaps too ' simple to be properly called a 

 nest. This is the web made, particvdarly in earlier 

 life, by the caterpillars of the Mourning Cloak 

 (Eu Vanessa antiopa), which move about much 

 from place to place, spinning wherever they go, so 

 that at last the line of movement, by successive 

 strands thrown across every angle a twig makes 

 with the larger stem, forms a sort of veil of silk 

 over which they crawl with extreme rapidity, but 

 without which their movements are greatly re- 

 tarded. 



Some caterpillars have a favorite place of 

 repose to which they come after every meal and 

 which they carpet with silk for greater comfort. 

 Of such are some of the swallow-tails, and it would 

 seem as if the nest they constructed were at first 

 an accidental result of this habit, perfected by its 

 protective adaptation. These caterpillars rest upon 

 the middle of the upper surface of a leaf, upon the 

 floor of which they have stretched a silken carpet 

 from side to side, each strand shorter than the last, 

 so as to make the edges curl toward each other 



