THE ANTIOPA BUTTERFLY. 
297 
ters very early in spring, often before the snow has entirely 
left the ground, but with ragged and faded wings ; and may 
be seen sporting in warm and sheltered spots in the begin¬ 
ning of ]\Iarch, and through the months of April and iNIay. 
Wilson, in his beautiful lines on the blue-bird, alludes to its 
early coming in the spring, 
“ When first the lone buttei-fiy fiits on the wing.” 
The caterpillars (Fig. 122) of the Antiopa butterfly live 
together in great numbers on 
the poplar, willow, and elm, on 
which the first broods mav be 
t/ 
found earlv in June. Thev are 
t/ 
black, minutelv dotted with white, 
with a row of eight dark brick-red spots on the top of the 
back. The head is black and rough with projecting points ; 
the spines, of which there are six or seven on each segment 
except the first, are black, stiff, and branched, and the inter¬ 
mediate legs are reddish. When fully grown they measure 
an inch and three quarters in length, and. appear very" for¬ 
midable with their thorny armature, which is doubtless in¬ 
tended to defend them from their enemies. It was formerly 
supposed that they were venomous, and capable of inflicting 
dangerous wounds ; and within my remembrance many per¬ 
sons were so much alarmed on this account as to cut down 
all the poplar-trees around their dwellings. This alarm was 
unfounded; for, although there are some caterpillars that 
have the power of inflicting venomous wounds with their 
spines and hairs, this is not the case with those of the An¬ 
tiopa butterflv. The onlv iniurv which can be laid to their 
charge is that of despoiling of their foliage some of our 
most ornamental trees, and this is enouo-h to induce us to 
take all proper measures for exterminating the insects, short 
of destroying the trees that they infest. I have sometimes 
seen them in such profusion on the willow and elm, that the 
limbs bent under their weight, and the long leafless branches, 
38 
