102 Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles 



The baby Emperors are good-sized cater- 

 pillars, which are ripe, so to speak, in autumn 

 (Fig. 92). Sometimes the caterpillars are brown 

 and sometimes green, sometimes hairy, but more 

 frequently look like the one shown in the illustra- 

 tion. The chrysalides or pupa? are black, stockily 

 built and armed with the spines or prickles which 

 help them to wiggle up to the top of the soil when 

 the miller wants to get out of its mummy case. 

 The baby millers will eat the needles of pine and 

 hemlock, also the leaves of oak and birch, sweet 

 gum and sassafras, hickory and numerous other 

 wild leaves. The eggs are laid in June after the 

 moth comes out of the chrysalis and mates; she 

 sometimes lays tlie eggs before she mates, but of 

 course these eggs do not hatch. The eggs are large 

 and yellow and stuck singly on the upper side of 

 the leaves. They hatch out in about two weeks' 

 time. 



The Emperor miller is beautiful and one that 

 you should, by all means, have in yoiu' collection. 

 As it is not very rare, it would be well to mount 

 at least three of them, an Emperor and an Em- 

 press, with their wings extended and then another, 

 either an Emperor or an Empress, with its wings 

 half folded in their natural position while at rest. 



