PLANTS AND ANIMALS IN WINTER. 319 



ages to slip away when taken into the hand. Beneath 

 loose bark, boards, rails and stones, this caterpillar 

 may be found in mid- 

 winter, coiled up and 

 apparently lifeless. On 

 the first bright, sunny 



days Of Spring it may Fig. 88-Hedgehog Caterpillar. 



be seen crawling rapidly over the ground, seek- 

 ing the earliest vegetation which will furnish it a 

 literal " breakfast." In April or May the chrysalis, 

 surrounded by a loose cocoon formed of the hairs of 

 the body interwoven with coarse silk, may be found 

 in situations similar to those in which the larva passed 

 the winter. From this, the perfect insect, the Isabella 

 tiger moth, Pyrrharctia Isabella Smith, emerges about 

 the last of June. It is a medium sized moth, dull 

 orange in color, with three rows of small black spots 

 on the body, and some scattered spots of the same 

 color on the wings. 



By breaking open rotten logs one can find in mid- 

 winter the grubs or larvse of many of the wood-boring 

 beetles, and, beneath logs and stones near the margins 

 of ponds and brooks, hordes of the maggots or larvse 

 of -certain kinds of flies may often be found huddled 

 together in great masses. The larvse of a few butter- 

 flies also live over winter beneath chips or bunches of 

 leaves near the roots of their food plant, or in webs 

 of their own construction, which are woven on the 

 stems close to the buds, whose expanding leaves will 

 furnish them their first meal in spring. 



Many insects pass the winter in the quiescent or 

 pupal stage; a state exceedingly well fitted for hiber- 



