MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



the abdomen. It turned, twisted, dug away the dirt, 

 fastened the abdominal tip, pulled up the head, and 

 then bored with the tip again. Later I saw several 

 others emerge in the same way, and then made some 

 experiments that forever convinced me that this is the 

 only manner in which ground pupae possibly could 

 emerge. 



One writer I had reason to suppose standard authority 

 stated that caterpillars from Citheronia Regalis eggs 

 emerged in sixteen days. So I boxed some eggs deposited 

 On the eleventh, labelled them due to produce caterpillars 

 on the twenty-seventh and put away the box to be 

 attended on that date. Having occasion to move it 

 on the twenty-fourth, I peeped in and found haK my 

 caterpillars out and starved, proving that they had been 

 hatched at least thirty-six hours or longer; half the others 

 so feeble they soon became inactive, and the remainder 

 survived and pupated. But if the time specified had 

 been allowed to elapse, every caterpillar would have 

 starved. 



One of the books I read preparatory to doing this work 

 asserts concerning spinners: "Most caterpillars make 

 some sort of cocoon or shelter, which may be of pure silk 

 neatly wound, or of silk mixed with hair and all manner 

 of external things — such as pieces of leaf, bark, moss, 

 and hchen, and even grains of earth. " 



I have had caterpillars spin by the hundred, in boxes 



24 



