47 



the fences, out- buildings, and even upon the ground, where no 

 leaves were to be had to aid in their construction. This may 

 have been in part due to a scarcity of foliage in the woodlands 

 where the trees had been entirely stripped. In sections where the 

 caterpillars were less common, most of the cocoons were formed in 

 the leaves, the leaf or leaves being brought around the cocoon as 

 shown at Plate II, fig. 3. This picture shows a cocoon partly 

 enclosed by two elm leaves held in place by the numerous threads 

 of silk attached to them. Some of the forest tent-caterpillars kept 

 in the breeding cages showed a tendency to forsake this habit ; for 

 out of about 150 over half spun their cocoons upon the sides of the 

 cages, the remainder utilizing the leaves that were there in abund- 

 ance. Most of these caterpillars spun their cocoons during the 

 night, but a few kept in a darkened room began during the latter 

 part of the afternoon. These were observed to require between 

 five and six hours to complete the work. After completing the 

 cocoon the imprisoned caterpillar molts once and then passes to 

 the pupa stage. 



The pupa. — Both male and female pupae are reddish -brown in 

 color. The former measures about five-eighths of an inch in 

 length and the latter three-fourths. 



Moths: time of appearance ; habits. — Last spring in the vicinity 

 of Geneva the moths were occasionally seen by June 20. A 

 large number of cocoons gathered from various parts of the 

 State where the caterpillars were very abundant furnish interest- 

 ing data as to the length of time during which the moths are 

 issuing, the percentage of males and females and the percentage 

 parasitized. As will be observed the moths issued from these 

 cocoons firom June 26 to July 8. The data in the following table 

 was obtained from 2,500 of the cocoons-'' 



■' Cocoons to the number of 3757 were sent in from various sections of the 

 state. Nearly 1,000 of them had hatched before being gathered leaving about 

 2700 unhatched. For most of these cocoons the writer is indebted to Mr. A. 

 R. Bastman, Waterville, N.Y., Mr. D. H. Burrell, Jr., Little Falls, N. Y., Mr. 

 J. B. Tnckerman, Cassville, N. Y., and Mr. J. M. Budlong, West Schuyler, 

 N. Y. 



