234 COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



the subject. But Mr. Newman has so completely 

 made it his own that I can do no better than give his 

 own spirited words. 



' I have seen the females of this species busily 

 engaged in oviposition, not only in the evening, but 

 in the middle of a warm summer's day, depositing a 

 single egg on a leaf of gooseberry or black-currant, 

 and then flying off to another. I once watched ten 

 females simultaneously occupied in this manner along 

 a garden wall less than eighty yards in length. 



* Like the eggs of most diurnal Lepidoptera, they 

 remain but a short time before hatching. The young 

 caterpillar feeds for two, three, or four weeks, rarely 

 longer, and then spins together the edges of a goose- 

 berry leaf, having first taken the precaution of making 

 the leaf fast to its twig by numerous silken cables,, 

 which prevent the possibility of its falling when dehi- 

 scence takes place in the autumn. In the little cradle 

 thus fabricated the infant caterpillar sleeps as securely 

 as the sailor in his hammock. Snow-storms and 

 wintry winds are matters of indifference to him, but 

 no sooner have the gooseberry bushes begun to 

 assume their livery of green in the spring, than 

 instinct informs him that food is preparirig to satisfy 

 his appetite, so he cuts an opening in his pensile 

 cradle, emerges, and begins to eat. 



'The full-fed caterpillar commonly rests in a 

 straight posture, lying parallel with the branch ; but 

 when annoyed, he elevates his back, and tucks in his 

 head until it is brought into contact with the abdo- 

 minal claspers. If the annoyance be continued, he 

 drops from his food, hanging by a thread, and rarely 



