232 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS 



laying one hundred and fifty-nine the first night and 

 six the last. 



The eggs were chalk- white, stained more or less 

 with the dark brown gummy fluid with which they 

 were fixed to the netting, box, or leaf. The last eggs 

 were pure white, the supply of fluid having been ex- 

 hausted. They were ovoid, and small in proportion to 

 the moth. 



The egg-period was eighteen days, and the eggs 

 turned lead-colored before hatching. Some were laid 

 in even, curving lines, some in rows set in a mat, 

 others in mats with second and third mats laid on top 

 of the first, and a few in irregular heaps. 



One set of eggs hatched in twenty-two days, one 

 set in eighteen days, one in twelve days, and this first 

 set we had hatched in twenty-one days. 



One set of caterpillars preferred tulip-tree, one 

 lilac, and another sassafras. They did not eat their 

 shells. 



These moths are natives of China and were im- 

 ported in the hope of getting silk from the cocoons. 

 They have become " common everywhere, especially 

 in the cities and towns," Mr. Beutenmiiller says. Their 

 food in China is chiefly the ailantus, but in America 

 they eat wild-cherry, linden, plum, sycamore, spice- 

 bush, sweet-gum, dogwood, holly, castor-oil plant, and 

 a few other kinds of leaves, as well as those on which 

 ours fed. 



The young caterpillars were three sixteenths of an 

 inch long, with polished black heads, and yellow-green 

 bodies having twelve black dots on each segment ex- 

 cept the first and last. The first segment had a black 



