ORDER IV. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 171 



never experience how soon disunion and discord destroy the 

 greatest, &quot; Discordia maxima? dilabimtur.&quot; 



The AMERICAN TENT-CATERPILLAR (Ctisiocampa Ameri 

 cana) is a small insect that makes its abode principally 

 upon the apple and wild-cherry tree. As soon as these 

 trees are clothed with the first tender leaves of spring we 

 may observe upon some of the twigs, or smaller shoots from 

 the main trunk, a small angular web, or tent, like a spider s 

 web, and if this be examined we shall find it containing 

 some three or four hundred very small caterpillars. These 

 feed upon the leaves of the tree, and in proportion as they 

 grow larger in size their tent increases in circumference. 

 These caterpillars increase in numbers very fast, and if they 

 are not destroyed as soon as first discovered they will 

 quickly cover all the branches, and in fact the whole tree, 

 with their web-like tents, which will each be filled with 

 large families, the offspring of one mother. Many thou 

 sands of these individuals live upon one tree in social com 

 panies, all working together in the manufacture of their wa 

 ter-proof habitations, sleeping together at night securely, for 

 their tents are entirely impervious to any kind of moisture, 

 and coming out regularly twice a day to take their meals, 

 unless it rains, which makes a day of fasting for them. 



These caterpillars all issue from eggs which are deposit 

 ed and glued around the twigs of the tree by their mother 

 during the preceding summer. The eggs laid by one single 

 female generally exceed three hundred in number. 



The head of this caterpillar is black ; its body is whitish, 

 lined with black and yellow stripes, and clothed with a few 

 soft hairs. It attains its growth in about seven weeks, and 

 then is nearly two inches long. Toward the latter part of 

 June they make their cocoons in crevices, and about three 

 weeks afterward are metamorphosed into moths, which are 

 of a reddish-brown color, having wings which expand one 

 and a half inches. 



