ATTACUS CECROPIA 



GENUS, AT'TACUS (loCUSt). 



SPECIES, OECRO'piA (Athenian). 



The big brown cocoon of cecropia is perhaps the most 

 common and usually the first found by beginners, 

 partly because it is so large, partly because there are 

 so many, partly because they are found on so many 

 trees or plants in such different conditions. They may 

 be down near the root of a woodbine or syringa, under 

 a fence-bar, on the very end of a maple-twig, along a 

 stout branch of willow, maple, box-elder, wild-cherry, 

 oak, apple, plum, pear, rose, currant, hop-hornbeam, 

 beach-plum, or on the stems of swamp loosestrife 

 growing in shallow water, making us wonder how the 

 caterpillars ever reached these stems. We have found 

 one flat against the stone foundation of a house. It is 

 no wonder, then, that most of us knew the cocoon be- 

 fore any other stage of cecropia. It is a very good 

 stage to find, for there is no difficulty in mating the 

 moths which come from the cocoons if they emerge at 

 the same time, or in tying out a female if no male 

 emerges. Then one has the life-history before him, 

 with ordinary care and good fortune. 



We did not get our first history in this way, how- 

 ever. Ours came to us in the shape of a row of four 



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