STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
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they wholly cease from feeding for one or two days, remaining 
all the time within the nest, those portions of the brood which 
are not ready to moult being at such times the only ones which 
go out to feed. From the most exact observations which I have 
been able to make, each worm appears to consume about two- 
thirds of an apple leaf at each meal—the leaves being small 
when the worms are young, and fully grown as they attain their 
full size. A worm an inch long which I confined in a tumbler 
fifteen days, noting the number and size of the leaves I fed to it, 
ate on an average an ordinary sized apple leaf, two and a half 
inches long and half as broad, daily. But thus confined, it took 
no exercise, and spun no web; and it thus required but half the 
food, probably, which it would have consumed had it been at 
liberty. I regard this therefore as confirming the correctness of 
the observations which I had previously made. It thus appears 
that each worm devours two leaves daily. And as each nest 
contains about three hundred worms, every owner of an orchard 
will perceive that with every caterpillar’s nest which he allows to 
remain upon his trees, the trees lose six hundred leaves daily. 
They always travel upon the upper side of the branches and 
limbs. And each worm, wherever it goes, spins a thread of 
silk, which not only gives it a more secure foothold, but serves 
also as a clue to guide it back to the nest again. Much of the 
traveling of these worms appears to be solely for exercise. As 
one after another has satisfied himself with food, he comes back 
to the nest and walks around upon its surface in every direction, 
thus adding new threads to it. Other worms having also com¬ 
pleted their meal, are coming home to their tent every moment. 
Thus its surface begins to become crowded and is perfectly black 
with the multitude of full fed individuals which are rambling 
about upon it, and the throng is constantly becoming more dense 
with new arrivals from the feeding ground. Hereupon some of 
them start away, up one of the limbs leading from the nest, and 
which is covered with cobweb threads from having been so 
often traveled before. Others follow after these leaders, and 
the limb through its whole length is soon thronged and black 
with a procession of worms, going out to its extremity and back; 
thus making room on the surface of the nest for other individ- 
