38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95 



The small caterpillars build their shelters progressively basal ward 

 from the apex of the leaflet, though never in its basal half. As they 

 become larger they descend to the larger leaflets lower down. 



As a result of the habit of the caterpillars of partially destroying 

 abandoned shelters, occupied shelters are easily distinguished from 

 unoccupied ones, a slight touch sufficing to raise the latter from the 

 surface of the leaflet. 



On a single occasion we found a second-stage caterpillar in a shelter 

 made by fastening together two small overlapping leaflets after the 

 fashion of the caterpillars in the last stage. 



After entering the fourth stage the caterpillar constructs a shelter 

 of a different type. Sometimes two long cuts are made running 

 directly inward from the edge of the leaflet about an inch apart, and 

 the outer edge of the flap so formed is simply folded inward over 

 the upper surface of the leaflet and fastened down along the inner 

 edge forming a cylindrical shelter more or less broadened in the middle. 

 More commonly, perhaps, the margin of the leaflet is simply folded 

 inward without any cuts being made. Whereas the shelters described 

 previously are always in the outer half of the leaflet, these shelters 

 are always in the broadest portion. 



This type of shelter is soon abandoned, and the now large caterpillar 

 binds two superposed leaflets together by a series of stout silk bands 

 having the form of an elongate oval from i to 2 inches in its longer 

 diameter. Within this oval both leaflets are lined with a sparse silk net- 

 work, most dense about the periphery, that pulls their surfaces into a 

 rather strongly concave form resulting in a well-concealed and com- 

 modious home. 



Occasionally any convenient leaf may be fastened to the upper sur- 

 face of a hog-peanut leaflet, or the shelter may be made of the leaves 

 of the plant about which the hog-peanut is twining. Thus we have 

 twice found large caterpillars in a shelter made by fastening a golden- 

 rod (Solidago) leaf securely down upon a hog-peanut leaflet, and we 

 have found others in shelters made of a hog-peanut leaflet and an oak 

 leaf, two hickory leaflets, two sassafras leaves, and two grape leaves. 



SHELTERS MADE BY RELATED SPECIES 



On July 4 we found, together with the caterpillars of this species, 

 a number of the caterpillars of Epargyrens tityrus on the larger 

 leaflets of Meibomia (or Desmodiimi) panicidata, and on the leaflets 

 of M. dillenii and the much less common M. michauxii. They were 

 especially common on the first named. They were also abundant on the 



