MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES 93 



just as children take off their clothes. Is it not 

 curious? 



When the skin is all off and the caterpillar is free, 

 it is almost twice as large as it was and it is generally 

 a little different in color and with different spots, 

 just as if it had a new dress. It changes its skin 

 very often, every time it has eaten enough to make 

 it grow a good deal larger. 



While they are wee babies, these caterpillars all 

 eat along the edge of the leaf they were hatched 

 upon, but as they become larger they go to different 

 leaves, and when they are quite large they eat a leaf 

 up with great rapidity. They make such a noise 

 as they eat that you can easily hear them biting off 

 mouthfuls of the leaves if you happen to be sitting 

 under a tree which is their dining room. 



You would laugh if you could see a large, full- 

 grown caterpillar begin on a fresh leaf. It seems to 

 be the hungriest sort of a creature and walks around 

 the edge of the leaf, eating as it goes. Its mouth 

 opens sideways and not up and down, as our mouths 

 open. So, as it walks around the leaf's edge, hugging 

 the leaf as it goes, with a foot on either side, the 

 mouth of the caterpillar gobbles up the leaf like a 

 machine. It does not even have to stop to breathe, 

 because it breathes through spiracles or little holes 

 all along its sides. 



Now after this caterpillar, or little eating machine, 

 has changed its skin several times, it is about ready 

 to roll itself up into its pupa case, or make a cocoon. 

 So it eats just as much as it possibly can hold and 

 then hurries away to find a place suitable for the 



