THE TIGER-MOTH 59 



or collected in early summer, can be put upon the food-plant, 

 and covered by the frame. They feed almost incessantly, 

 grow fast, and change their skins from time to time. The 

 full-fed larva of the tiger-moth is about two inches long, of 

 a beautiful velvety black varied with brilliant white warts, 

 from which spring bunches of long and close-set hairs, which 

 are foxy-red on the sides of the body and towards the head, 

 but black, tipped with greyish white, along the back. When 

 alarmed, the larva (which is called "woolly-bear" from its hairy 

 covering) rolls itself up into a ball, and lets itself drop. The 

 long, elastic hairs break the fall, and after lying quiet for a 

 minute or so, the caterpillar begins to creep about again. 

 Hedgehogs use the same artifice when they wish to let them- 

 selves down from a height. Woolly-bears are active in their 

 habits, and creep pretty fast. About the end of June they 

 begin to spin the cocoon. Seeking a sheltered corner, they 

 secure their bodies with a few outer threads, and then spin a 

 dense cocoon, into which they weave most of their own hair. 

 At last the larval skin, thus denuded, spHts and is cast off. 

 A shining black pupa is now revealed, which lies motionless 

 within the cocoon for four or five weeks, until the parts 

 within are perfected, when the pupa-skin cracks, and a hand- 

 some moth with thick reddish body, fore wings of umber 

 mottled with cream colour, and hind wings of red, spotted 

 with brown and black, makes its appearance. The moths 

 when living at large, copulate and lay their eggs, which soon 

 hatch out, and produce a brood of small hairy caterpillars. 

 These feed awhile, but before they have grown to any con- 

 siderable size, winter forces them to crawl into hiding-places, 

 where they lie dormant till the following spring. 



Such are the most obvious features of a Lepidopterous life- 

 history, and without knowledge or skill beyond those of the 

 schoolboy we may observe them for ourselves. 



When a number of moths are reared in captivity, we may 

 now and then be lucky enough to observe what takes place 

 at the time of pupation. The larval skin splits, and the 

 insect within wriggles out. It is pale and flabby, altogether 

 unlike the larva in form, but resembling, except in colour, the 

 imago or winged insect. It possesses two pairs of wings of 

 simple form, and much smaller than those of the moth, six 

 long legs, feelers, and a proboscis like those of the moth, and 



