HOW TO KNOW THE INSECTS 



71 



is then to be met with. The parent 

 butterflies that hved through the winter 

 have ceased to ex'ist, and those butter- 

 flies that will suddenly appear about the 

 beginning of July, are, as we have seen, 

 feeding on the buckthorn leaves. Later 

 on, we shall doubtless discover the con- 

 necting links between these hungry cater- 



By this time, however, the caterpillar 

 has most probably changed into a 

 chrysalis, lying within the strong co- 

 coon it has constructed from self-spun 

 silk, interwoven with tufts of the white 

 and brown hairs that decorated its body. 

 So it will rest for some four or five 

 weeks — when we must look for it in 

 its new guise. 



Other quaint bundles may be seen 

 suspended by silken threads from elder 

 twigs. These are very differently con- 

 structed, they are composed of small 

 pieces of leaves fastened together by 

 means of silken threads. If we pull 

 the bits of leaves apart, in the centre of 

 each of these cocoons we shall find a 

 dark-coloured chrysalis together with a 

 shrunken caterpillar skin. The skin is 

 shrunken so much that even if it be 

 straightened out it will probably give 

 but little clue as to what its late owner 

 was like. It happens, though, that I 

 saw the cocoons shown in the illustration, 

 when in the process of construction, so 



COCOON OF DRINKER MOTH 

 CATERPILLAR. 



pillars and the yellow 

 winged butterflies. 



At the beginning of 

 the month, too, we 

 glanced at the cater- 

 pillars of the Drinker 

 Moth. Where are they 

 now ? Well, the cuckoo, 

 that calls from the dis- 

 tance, could probably 

 account for many of 

 their number, for that 

 bird is one of the cater- 

 pillar's most persistent enemies. A 

 search amongst the coarse grasses on 

 which these caterpillars fed will pro- 

 bably reveal some spindle-shaped objects 

 attached to their stems (as shown in 

 the photogra})h on this page), and 

 safely wrapped in these are the for- 

 tunate larva; that escaped the cuckoo. 



COCOONS SUSPENDED FROM ELDER TWIGS. 



that I am able to say just how they came 

 to be, and the story is simply this : Two 

 most curious and interesting caterpillars 

 held to the branches very firmly by their 

 tail claspers while they stretched out 

 to reach the leaves, from which they 

 bit pieces. Each cateriMllar first gathered 

 two pieces and suspended thcni to the 



