Twelfth Report op the State Entomologist 339 



-cling the twig, binding the leaf securely to it, and holding it there during 

 the falling of the other leaves and through all the winter's storms. In- 

 close the cocoons in a box of sufficient size to admit of the expansion of 

 the wings of the moth and some freedom of motion when it comes from 

 its cocoon. On some morning in the month of June, (earlier if they have 

 been kept in a warm apartment) if your cocoons contained living pupse, 

 you will find that the moths have emerged, and deposited a large number 

 of eggs, cementing them to the sides of the box. Note the regularity of 

 form and size of the eggs, each with its yellowish spot upon its somewhat 

 flattened upper side. When two or three weeks thereafter, the eggs com- 

 mence to hatch, with a magnifier in hand, watch the enclosed caterpillars 

 eating their way out of the shells, always at one side, and through a some- 

 what oval hole. 



Transfer them carefully to some tender leaves of their food-plant, and 

 observe their social habit of grouping themselves side by side like soldiers 

 on parade, and their manner of eating. After you have watched them 

 for a week, and noticed perhaps with fear of the result lest it should be- 

 token incipient disease, their fasting for a day or two, you will find them 

 materially increased in size and in a new dress of light green with bands 

 of yellow, bordered with black, and rows of white-bristled tubercles stud- 

 ding their body. Tliis is their first molting, or casting of their skin to 

 admit of increased growth. Four or five times you may observe a 

 similar molting, followed each time by a new and more beautiful garni- 

 ture. As the caterpillar approaches maturity you will surely be com- 

 pelled to regard it as a beautiful creature, with its creamy pruinescence, 

 its bands of dark blue tubercles on each ring, its four rich coral-red horns 

 on the front of its body and a yellow black-ringed one at its other 

 extremity. Carefully observe the row of spiracles or breathing pores 

 upon the sides of the body through which the air is admitted to the tra- 

 cheal vessels, and the peculiar structure of its many-hooked clasping legs. 

 It is indeed a wonderful creature, — not " a worm " as ordinarily stig- 

 matized, but a being which its Creator has dignified with the possession 

 of eight times the number of muscles that are to be found in the human 

 body ; and in every way worthy of your study and admiration. When 

 through your watchful care, your little colony have attained their growth, 

 to your great relief from providing them with an adequate supply ot 

 their daily food, do not fail to have your eyes upon them as they throw 

 out the first threads that are to bend the leaf in shape for enfolding their 

 cocoons, preparatory to passing to their pupation. The leaf may hardly 

 be more than marked as the chosen one, before you may see the busy 



