214 THE IDYL OF THE SPLIT-BAMBOO 



Their appearance should have been carefully 

 watched for, and food leaves have been supplied as 

 soon as the little, black worms were seen. The 

 freshly-hatched cecropia caterpillar is about a quar- 

 ter of an inch long, black, and with little black 

 bristle-like tubercles. Occasionally I have had 

 freaks in a brood, such specimens being a deep yellow 

 in color. Any kind of leaf which the young cater- 

 pillar will take is suitable food for the first three 

 stages of its existence; one year, when I had a brood 

 hatch early in April, I fed them on the leaf of some 

 perennial shrub which supplied the only u garden 

 sass " then available. I have seen it stated that the 

 young Asiatic silkworm may be fed on lettuce for a 

 few days, till better food may be obtained, but my 

 experience with the young American silkworm is just 

 the contrary; broods coming out before the leaves 

 opened have " turned up their noses " at tender let- 

 tuce and stolidly succumbed to starvation. 



Apple, pear, currant, peach, plum, berry of all 

 kinds, bay, hard and soft maple, mountain laurel, 

 apricot, may be fed to them, some broods preferring 

 one kind, some another. They eat voraciously, with 

 a peculiar movement; supporting themselves by the 

 false legs or props on the latter half of the body, 

 and grasping the edge of the leaf with the sharp- 

 pointed true legs, they raise the head and set the 

 mandibles into the edge of the leaf, then bring the 

 head slowly down, at the same time cutting the leaf 



