Caterpillars: 



351 



counted above tw.euty nests, each of which would contain 

 from fifty to a hundred caterpillars ; and though these do 

 not grow thicker than a crow-quill, so many of them scarcely 

 left a leaf undevoured, and, of course, the fruit, which 

 showed abundantly in spring, never came to maturity. The 

 summer following they were still more abundant on the 

 hawthorn hedges, particularly near the Thames, by Battersea 

 and Eichmond. Since then we have only seen them 



Encampment of tbe caterpillar of the small ermine (Fponomeuta padella) on the 

 Siberian crab. 



sparingly ; and last summer we could only find the single 

 nest upon which we tried the preceding experiment. (J. E.) 

 The caterpillars of other moths, which are in some years 

 very common such as the brown-tail (Porikesia auriflua), 

 and the golden-tail (P. chrysorrhcea), are also social; and, 

 as the eggs are hatched late in the summer, the brood passes 

 the winter in a very closely-woven nest of warm silk. This 

 is usually represented as composed of leaves which have had 

 their pulpy parts eaten as food by the colonists ; but from 

 minute observation of at least twenty of these nests in the 



