94 Animal Life 
Nature again comes to their aid, providing them with a colour more in tone with the 
bark and earth over which they sometimes crawl before reaching a suitable place on 
which to spin their cocoons. It is an interesting sight to watch puss larve select 
nice comfortable crevices in the bark; they are decidedly fastidious, putting a few 
threads of silk down, then turning away like a dissatisfied customer at a draper’s shop. 
I always give a good selection of willow stumps and virgin cork, of which they are 
very fond: it is soft to their teeth and full of convenient crevices. On one willow 
branch (Fig. 5) I watched the entire operation. The larva first went over the surface, 
trying if with its mouth and spinning organ. After careful measurement, it com- 
menced at the top end by stretching a few strong silken threads across from the highest 
points; to these were attached cross-threads, forming a very coarse mesh. Drawing 
the body slightly underneath this network, it turned its head backward and worked 
Fig. 2. Young Caterpillar of Puss-Moth. Fig. 3. Puss Caterpillar in its New Dress. 
the network over the middle of its body. Then, curling itself round, it stretched the 
network to its full capacity, bringing its head on a level with the tail, working the silken 
threads over and just beyond the latter, which was soon covered in, a small aperture 
being left open about the centre. An occasional pause was made in the spinning to 
permit of the larva biting off small pieces of bark, which it carefully forced between the 
viscid meshes; these pieces were equally distributed over the surface of the cocoon except 
at the top end, which was left clear and not so thick as the main part. When the 
larva had completely covered itself in with the coarse network of silk and fixed the small 
pieces of bark over the surface, it ejected a quantity of viscid fluid, with which it washed 
all over the inside of the cocoon, giving it the appearance of hayimg been varnished. 
Though ! could not see through the cocoon, the larva was evidently hard at work 
smoothing down the irregularities of the bark forming the floor, as small pieces were 
