26 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1918-19 



twenty years ago, I found the first caterpillar of this species I ever saw on a plum 

 tree. It had a sleek and glossy skin soft as velvet, and I was almost horror- 

 struck when I happened to feel what I thought a dead twig moving and wriggling 

 under my fingers. Slingerland and Crosby say in their description that this in- 

 sect is a general feeder, In fact, I have found it feeding on plum trees, currant 

 bushes and, last summer, I found a whole colony of it on sweet clover, Melilotus 

 alba. They were there, about 15 or 20 of them, feeding quietly, and I could 

 observe them at leisure during about eight days, finding after that lapse a few, 

 two or three, brown cocoons of the caterpillars, which I gathered and kept to see 

 their metamorphosis. This took place at the end of last January and I have 

 here one empty cocoon and the dead moth, then living, as I found it on January 

 the 25th. It is very curious to find such a small and short cocoon, about three- 

 fourths of an inch in length, being the final habitation of such a long caterpillar, 

 almost 2 inches in length. 



