4 
ORDER IV.-——-MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 17#& 
never experience how soon disunion and discord destroy the 
greatest, “* Discordia maximee dilabuntur.” 
The AMERICAN TENT-CATERPILLAR (Clisiocampa Ameri- 
cana) is a small insect that makes its abode principally 
upon the apple and wild-cherry tree. As soon as these 
trees are clothed with the first tender leaves of spring we 
may observe upon some of the twigs, or smaller shoots from 
the main trunk, a small angular web, or tefit; like a spider’s 
web, and if this be examined we shall find it containing 
some three or four hundred very small caterpillars. These 
feed upon the leaves of the tree, and in proportion as they 
grow larger in size their tent increases in circumference. 
These caterpillars increase in numbers very fast, and if they 
are not destroyed as soon as first discovered they will 
quickly cover all the branches, and in fact the whole tree, 
with their web-like tents, which will each be filled with 
large families, the offspring of one mother. Many thou- 
sands of these individuals live upon one tree in social com- 
panies, all working together in the manufacture of their wa- 
ter-proof habitations, sleeping together at night securely, for 
their tents are entirely impervious to any kind of moisture, 
and coming out regularly twice a day to take their meals, 
unless it rains, which makes a day of fasting for them. 
These caterpillars all issue from eggs which are deposit- 
ed and glued around the twigs of the tree by their mother 
during the preceding summer. ‘The eggs laid by one single 
female generally exceed three hundred in number. 
The head of this caterpillar is black ; its body is whitish, 
lined with black and yellow stripes, and clothed with a few 
soft hairs. It attains its growth in about seven weeks, and 
then is nearly two inches long. ‘Toward the latter part of 
June they make their cocoons in crevices, and about three 
weeks afterward are metamorphosed into moths, which are 
of a reddish-brown color, having wings which expand one 
and a half inches. 
