SPINNERS AND WEAVERS 15 



menty, and crackle when touched. The chrysalis 

 contrives to force its way half out of the upper 

 end just prior to the emergence of the moth. 



Although the butterflies as a class are contented 

 with a pad of silk for the chrysalis to hook its tail 

 in, and a silken girdle round its middle, there 

 are a few whose caterpillars spin cocoons. Such is 

 the case with the Grayling Butterfly (Satyrus 

 semele), although it must be confessed that the silk 

 is reduced to the minimum just sufficient to hold 

 the earth particles together. The caterpillars, too, 

 of the Skipper Butterflies spin a slight cocoon, as 

 a rule drawing together a few of the leaves of the 

 plant upon which they feed. 



The caterpillars of some moths as soon as they 

 leave the egg -combine to weave an extensive sheet 

 of silk around the twigs of their food-plant, enclosing 

 a considerable number of leaves upon which they 

 can feed in safety. A very familiar example of this 

 class of spinner is the little grey moth Hypono- 

 meuta padella^ which often strips hawthorn hedges 

 completely of their leaves, and the twigs are bare 

 save for the caterpillars' extensive sheets of webbing. 

 It is remarkable that, throughout their larval 

 existence, the caterpillars hatched from one batch 

 of eggs will keep together under the protection of 

 their own common tent. An allied species, Hypono- 

 meuta cagnagella, makes havoc of the spindle- tree, 

 and of the garden Euonymus, under similar pro- 

 tective webs. 



Other species construct these webs for their 



