210 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS 



stages they had given us hard work to keep them 

 where they belonged, and some of the children used to 

 beg to " come in and see the white circus " when we 

 opened their boxes, for we seldom escaped without at 

 least one crawler up a sleeve or on our aprons, until 

 we established a transfer-box, into which we put old 

 leaves and caryce^ shutting them up tight, while we jire- 

 pared the box and fresh twigs. Even then the chang- 

 ing back was not without excitement, for we did not 

 care to put all the old leaves back, and sorting these 

 out gave time for races between caryce and our fingers, 

 and sometimes the visiting children were called into 

 service. 



We put away the cocoons on September 20, with 

 a relieved " That 's ovei'," and on going to the 

 cocoon-box on the 28th were amazed to find every 

 moth out. They ought to have stayed quiet until 

 the next June, according to the books, but there 

 they were, having lived from egg to moth in about 

 twelve weeks. 



What could we do with one hundred caryce moths ? 

 If each pair laid at least a hundred eggs their cater- 

 pillars would ravage the neighborhood, and we knew 

 that our one mat of eggs held a hundred, and that the 

 moth doubtless laid a mat in a different place on each 

 of four or five nights, which would make a goodly 

 number of eggs even if the later mats were smaller. 

 Moreover, we could not be sure that she laid only one 

 mat each night. We began by killing two males and 

 two females as specimens, and then decided that it 

 was so late in the season that the caterpillars could 

 not grow up before frost killed off their food-leaves, 



