A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING 43 



tough for the jaws of a baby caterpillar. On the other 

 hand, his subsequent actions would seem to imply 

 method in his manner of attacking the leaf ; for the 

 Viceroy larva is a night feeder, and he uses the denuded 

 midrib as a perch during the day. Stretched out 

 lengthwise on this he is nearly invisible during his 

 earlier stages. Besides this, he uses a very ingenious 

 device to distract the attention of keen eyes from his 

 precious person ; he fastens with a silken thread a little 

 bunch of debris to the bare stem between his feeding- 

 place and his resting-place (Fig. 21). This is a clever 

 performance ; for if one of his foes should be hunting on 

 this leaf and should start out on the denuded stem it 

 would meet with this empty and worthless mass and 

 would naturally be discouraged from further investiga- 

 tion. As the caterpillar gnaws off more of the leaf he 

 moves his ambush bundle farther down the stem; so 

 it is evidently of some real use to him. 



After a few days our caterpillar finds his skin too 

 small for his increasing size and proceeds to shed it 

 caterpillar-wise ; but he is still unwilling to leave any 

 traces of himself around, so he eats up his old skin as 

 he did his egg-shell. He soon destroys the leaf of his 

 birth and then consumes others. In the course of his 

 growth he sheds his skin three times and after each 

 moult he assumes a change of form and color. Various 



