174 



DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 



shown in Fig. 236. Those we have watched fed mostly at 

 night, early morning, or at midday. They are social cater- 

 pillars, and each family or colony lives together in a silken 

 tent or nest, which they begin in a near-by crotch soon after 

 they hatch, and gradually enlarge as they need larger quar- 

 ters. 

 These tents or " signboards" are conspicuous objects in an 



Fig. 238.~Female Moth of Apple-tree 

 Tent-caterpillar on Cocoon, natu- 

 ral size. 



Fig. 239.— a Forest Tent-cater- 

 pillar, natural size. 



orchard. The tent serves as a home from which the cater- 

 pillars issue at feeding times and forage over the tree, spin- 

 ning a silken thread wherever they go. When they get their 

 growth early in June, they find some secluded cranny in a 

 near-by fence or elsewhere and spin about themselves a coarse, 

 white, silken cocoon intermixed with a yellow powder (Fig. 

 238). In this cocoon they change to pupae, and finally trans- 

 form to reddish-brown moths (Fig. 238) in about three weeks. 

 The moths emerge and lay their peculiar rings of eggs (Fig. 

 237) around the smaller branches early in July; each egg- 

 mass contains about two hundred eggs, which are covered by 



