SCARCITY OF FOOD-PLANT. 203 



the six nearest the head being tipped with blue ; 

 it was a lovely thing, and I felt I had a prize. 

 When I next visited the tree for leaves, I found 

 the little web-spinners had cleared all the lower 

 part, and my boy had to climb. In a few more 

 days the huge tree was a skeleton, and no one 

 seemed to know of another, my beauty mean- 

 while growing larger and larger, with an appetite 

 in proportion. At last a Kafir found a tree 

 two miles off, only just in time, and my anxiety 

 was at an end. The moth of this was Attacus 

 Mythimna. 



I reared a large number of the light yellow 

 caterpillar with brown rings, mentioned before 

 as feeding on the seeds, pods, and leaves of 

 the crimson and white lily. They were nasty 

 feeders, eating up the decaying pulp of the 

 pod after the seeds were finished, whilst those 

 in the leaves were snugly burrowing their way 

 among the juicy inside, eating as they went, 

 but never breaking through. Some formed their 

 chrysalis in the sand, and some in the wet 

 decaying leaves. When they had eaten up all 



