The Forest Caterpillah 



117 



In an ordinary season the egg masses are for the most part deserted by 

 the last of April, although as was noticed above, some of them are 

 empty three or four weeks earlier. In other words the egg masses do not 

 all hatch at the same time there being three or four weeks interval between 

 the earliest and latest. When first hatched, the little caterpillars as they 

 huddle together on the twigs appear almost black. They are about a tenth 

 of an inch long and rather slender. The body is covered, but not thickly, 



FIGURE ;.. WELL GROWN CATERPILLARS FEEDING 

 Showing usual Dosition when eating. After Weed 



with long grayish hairs. The first food seems to be the covering of the egg 

 mass. Speaking of the tent caterpillar Lowe ' says that ' ' about one hundred 

 caterpillars hatched in a cage in the laboratory subsisted for six days upon 



I. N. Y. (State) Sta. Bui. 152, p. 283 (1898). 



