Insect Study 



327 



Woolly bears. 

 Photo by M. V. Slingerland. 



direction, to observe if there is anything to cUng to in its neighborhood. 

 When we try to seize the woolly bear, it rolls up in a little ball, and the 

 hairs are so elastic that we take it up with great difficulty. These hairs 

 are a protection from the attacks of birds which do not like bristles for 

 food; and when the caterpillar is safely rolled up, the bird sees only a 

 little bundle of bristles and lets it alone. The woolly bear feeds upon 

 many plants, grass, clover, dandelion and others. It does not eat very 

 much after we find it in autumn, because its growth is completed. The 

 woolly bear should be kept in a box which should be placed out of doors, 

 so that it may be protected from storms but have the ordinary winter 

 temperature. Keeping it in a warm room during the winter often proves 

 fatal. 



Normally, the woolly bear does not make its cocoon until April or 

 May. It finds some secluded spot in the fall, and there curls up in 

 safety for the long winter nap; when the warm weather comes in the 

 spring, it makes its cocoon by spinning silk about itself; in this silk are 

 woven the hairs which it sheds easily at that time, and the whole cocoon 

 seems made of felt. It seems amazing that such a large 

 caterpillar can spin about itself and squeeze itself into 

 such a small cocoon; and it is quite as amazing to see 

 the smooth little pupa within the cocoon, in which is 

 condensed all that was essential of the caterpillar. 

 Sometimes when the caterpillars are kept in a warm 

 room, they make their cocoons in the fall, but this is not 

 natural. 



The issuing of the moth from the cocoon is an 

 interesting lesson for the last of May. The size of the 

 moth which comes from the cocoon is quite comparable 

 as a miracle with the size of the caterpillar that went 

 into it. The moth is in color dull, grayish, tawny yel- 

 low with a few black dots on the wings; sometimes the 

 hind wings are tinted with dull orange-red. On the middle of the 

 back of the moth's body there is a row of six black dots; and on 

 each side of the body is a similar row. The legs are reddish 

 above and tipped with black. The antenna are small and inconspicuous. 



The cocoon of the 



woolly bear. 



Photo by 



M. V. Slingerland. 



