224 



COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



in search of a wife. She, on the other hand, never 

 travels at all. Where she was reared, there she lives, 

 there she is mated, there she provides a fresh brood, 

 and there she dies, fulfilling the duties of her life within 

 very narrow bounds. Her eggs are laid upon the silken 

 web which she herself spun as a caterpillar, and from 

 those eggs are hatched a brood of tiny larvae, each of 

 which is intended to follow in the track of its parents. 

 So plentiful are these egg-groups that, were it not 

 for the presence of sundry little birds, which find 

 much of their winter's nourishment in the eggs of 

 various Lepidoptera, we should 

 be soon overrun with Vapourer 

 Moths, and our trees and 

 hedges would suffer sadly. The 

 female Moths themselves, being 

 utterly unable to escape, and 

 not seeming able even to crawl 

 beyond the limits of the pupal 

 web, also fall victims to the 

 birds in no small number. 



The caterpillar is shown 

 herewith, and is a very pretty 

 one. Its colours are exceed- 

 ingly variable, but it is always furnished with a brush- 

 like tuft of yellow hairs on the back of the fifth, 

 sixth, seventh, and eighth segments, two long black 

 tufts on the second segment, directed forwards, and 

 a single similar tuft on the last segment but one, 

 directed backwards. There is scarcely a tree or shrub 

 on which this strange-looking caterpillar will not 

 feed. 



Orgyia antiqua, larva. 



