ay Captain T. Hutton’s Characters of 
by the autumnal brood. Trees thus stripped in the middle of 
May will be again in full foliage by the end of the first week in 
June. 
It is curious to observe the instinctive knowledge which these 
worms appear to possess of the approach of a hail-storm; no 
sooner are the peals of thunder heard, than the whole brood 
seems to regard them as a warning trumpet-call, and all are 
instantly in motion seeking shelter beneath the thicker branches, 
and even descending the trunk of the tree to some little distance, 
but never proceeding so low down as to lose the protecting shelter 
of the boughs. For rain they care nothing, but appear to be 
able to distinguish between the coming of a heavy shower, and 
the more pitiless pelting of the hail. 
When the caterpillar is newly hatched its appearance, as seen 
under a good lens, is as follows :—Head and pro-legs shining jet 
black ; body dark brown, approaching to black ; the first segment 
whitish-ash, the fourth pale rufous, as are the anal feet; tubercles 
disposed in longitudinal rows, giving forth short tufts of hair; a 
small anal tubercle on the penultimate segment: thus far there is 
scarcely a difference between it and the young Chinese worm. 
Length fully 1 of an inch: strong and robust, as compared with 
the best domestic stock. In the course of a day or two, the four 
anterior segments become greatly swollen and of a faint livid cream- 
colour, the dorsal portion being mottled or dotted with deep 
brown; the orange or rufous colour of the fourth segment some- 
what deeper. 
About the fourth day the four anterior segments become swollen 
up very remarkably into a globular form, the dark spots being 
apparently beneath the skin; the rest of the body dark brown, with 
here and there a tinge of dull yellowish. On the fifth day they 
prepared to moult. After the first moult, the second and third 
segments form a globular ball, apparently out of all proportion to 
the rest of the body; the general ground colour becomes creamy- 
white, with the fourth segment yellow, the second and third being 
dotted above with dull leaden-grey ; the remainder closely marbled 
over, or variegated without any definite arrangement, with black, 
grey, orange, ash and yellow blending like tortoise-shell; the 
fleshy tubercles or spines short, conical and brown; skin smooth. 
In the subsequent stages the general appearance remains the 
same, except that the spines are long and taper to a point, being 
fleshy at the base, but becoming somewhat horny towards the 
summits; all bend backwards in a curve except the central one on 
the penultimate segment, which lies down horizontally and points 
forward. 
