The Life of the Caterpillar 



a light tent, a spacious verandah of careful 

 workmanship, especially in the upper part. 

 Here we find a broad terrace on which, in the 

 daytime, the caterpillars come and doze in 

 the sun, heaped one upon the other, with 

 rounded backs. The network stretching 

 overhead does duty as an awning: it mode- 

 rates the heat of the sun's rays; it also saves 

 the sleepers from a fall when the bough rocks 

 in the wind. 



Let us take our scissors and rip open the 

 nest from end to end longitudinally. A wide 

 window opens and allows us to see the ar- 

 rangement of the inside. The first thing to 

 strike us is that the leaves contained in the 

 enclosure are intact and quite sound. The 

 young caterpillars in their temporary esta- 

 blishments gnaw the leaves within the silken 

 wrapper to death ; they thus have their larder 

 stocked for a few days without having to quit 

 their shelter in bad weather, a condition made 

 necessary by their weakness. When they 

 grow stronger and start working on their win- 

 ter home, they are very careful not to touch 

 the leaves. Why these new scruples? 



The reason is evident. If bruised, those 

 leaves, the framework of the house, would 

 30 



