PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF THE ATLANTIC AND GULF STATES 



747 



tory of the insect. Dr. William J. Holland, in his "Moth Book," says : "The 

 'bag' or 'basket' of the male insect is smaller than that f the female. The 

 males escape from the lower end of the case in the winged form, and having 

 cojjulated with the females, which remain in their cases and are apterous and 

 sluggish, die. The female deposits her eggs, which are soft and yellow, in the 

 sack where she has her home, and ends her existence by leaving what little of 

 her body remains after the ova have been extruded, as a sort of loose plug of 

 dessicated tissue at the lower end of the sack. The eggs remain in the case 

 till the following spring, when they hatch. The young larvae emerge, and 

 placing themselves upon the leaves, where they walk about on their fore feet, 

 with their anal extremities held up perpendicularly, proceed to construct about 

 themselves little cones of vegetable matter mixed with fine silk. After a while 

 they cease to hold these cones correct, and seizing the leaves and branches 

 with their feet, allow the bag to as- 

 sume a pendant position. They moult 

 within their cases four times before 

 reaching maturity and pupating." 

 Sometimes hundreds of these little 

 bags are seen to be suspended from 

 the twigs of a single tree. 



When the frosty nights of October 

 come along, up through the Middle 

 Atlantic and New England States, we 

 have the annual and gorgeous display 

 of the turning of the foliage of many 

 of the different species of trees from 

 the greens of summer and spring to 

 the incomparable tints and shades of 

 the reds, scarlets and yellows that 



FLOWERS OF 



THE GORGEOUS 

 VINE 



TRUMPET 



BADLY "STUNG," WITH THE STINGS PROV- 

 ING FATAL 



Fig. IO~Hcre _we have a more complete example 

 of the Virginia Creeper, with the same specimen 

 f caterpillar shown in Figure 9. The latter has 

 been fatally attacked by a female ichneumon Hy, 

 an<l the masses of white objects almost covering 

 the unhappy victim are the larvae of the para- 

 site On the evening the caterpillar was collected, 

 it appeared as in Figure 9; while next morning it 

 presented the appearance so well shown here. 



a more striking appearance than our Trumpet- 

 vine {Tecoma radicaiis). Abundant in northern 

 Virginia, it has been introduced as an ornamental 

 vine by many home-owners at the National Capi- 

 tal. In August its gorgeous vermilion flowers con- 

 stitute one of the glories of the dusty roadside. 



usher in the early months of autumn. 

 Amidst this marvelous color-display 

 there is a no more elegant participant 

 than our Virginia Creeper, especially 

 if the vine be a big one and has grown 

 to exhibit its foliage to the best ad- 

 vantage. As these lines are written, 

 the gray, pebble-dashed south wall of 

 my home is overrun with such a vine, 

 .covering as it does many square yards. 

 As the sun strikes it during the day, 

 the thousands of scarlet leaves, inter- 

 mingled with hundreds of bunches of 

 small, round, bluish-black berries 

 the former all facing outwards we 

 are having presented to us a sight of 

 peculiar beauty and magnificence one 

 of the chief glories of America's floral 

 world. Darwin experimented with 

 the tenacious hold of the tendril-disks 

 of this vine, and other writers have had 

 much to say about it. It grows lu.xur- 

 iantly in Cuba and even in northern 

 Mexico. Many will be familiar with the sight depicted with the camera in Figure 

 10 of this article. The unhappy larva has been attacked by one of our small- 

 est thymeno|)terous parasites a retires entative of the ichneumon family. The 

 female of this insect, which is about the size of a mosquito, deposits her eggs 

 U])on the skin of the caterpillar. These soon hatch out, and the minute grubs 

 work their way into the body of the victim, to feed upon the fat immediately 

 beneath the skin. Later on, and previous to the maturing of the caterpillar, 

 these grubs ap])ear on the surface of the skin, and there weave the little silken 

 cocoons so well shown in the reproduction of the photograph in Figure 10. 

 From these cocoons emerge the perfect insects, and the jjoor caterpillar invari- 

 ably succumbs to the ordeal through which it has passed. The' caterpillars of 

 other species of our beautiful Sjjhinx moths suffer in a similar manner, and 

 thousands of them perish thus every year. 



THE SCARLET LEAVES OF THE VIRGINIA 

 CREEPER ONCE SEEN WILL NEVER BE 

 FORGOTTEN 



Fig.9 There is no more beautiful vine in all 

 America than our Woodbine, or, as it is more 

 generally known. Virginia Creeper. It has been 

 called Psedera quinqitefolia of the Vine family 

 iVitaceae). Its generic name Psedera is supposed 

 to come from the Greek term hederat given to the 

 ivy. Quinqnefolia refers to the leaf -arrangement 

 of the five leaflets, so distinctly sho,vn in the 

 cut. The beautiful green caterpillar is the larva 

 of one of our best Sphinx moths, the Pholtts 

 sateltitia pandorus, a subspecies of the Satellite 

 sphinx. 



