104 NESTS AND OTHER STRUCTURES 



by many other of our butterflies. The Red Ad- 

 miral (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 number of 

 leaves ; the nest is always roomy, capable of hous- 

 ing several caterpillars, though never containing 

 more than one. 



The nesting habits of the Red Admiral are 

 shared by the other species of Vanessa, with certain 

 slight variations. In early life the Painted Lady 

 (V. cardui) tries to make the stiff and crenulate 

 edges of thistle-leaves meet together, but with 

 indifferent success, and so fills in the interstices 

 with an exceedingly thin web, in no way conceal- 

 ing it from sio^ht. In after-life it forms an oval nest 

 of the size of a pigeon's egg, by fastening adjoining 

 leaves together very slightly, and filling all the 

 'iiixeriices with a similar flimsy web, upon which 

 it fasten^ or into which it weaves, bits of eaten 

 leaf or parfibOf the inflorescence of the plant, still 

 imperfectly cdicealing it from sight; and some- 

 times it hangs its^Jf up for chrysalis within the 

 same narrow, and by this time very filthy, apart- 



