The Moths and Butterflies 
393 
reddish black with conspicuous yellow longitudinal stripes, each caterpillar 
curiously jerking its body or resting quietly with both head and body tip 
held up nearly at right angles to the middle part with its four pairs of clinging 
prop-legs. These are Datana larvae, which 
have come down from their feeding on the 
leaves of the tree to moult. The jerking 
frightens away in some measure the numerous 
parasitic Tachina flies which are always 
ready to attend on a gathering of this sort 
and lay a few eggs where they will do the 
Tachina species the most good, that is, on 
the body of these plump caterpillars, so 
that the hatching Tachina grub can burrow into this well-nourished body 
and feed on its living tissues. When feeding in the tree-tops, too, the Datana 
Fig. 561. —The red-humped cater¬ 
pillar-moth, (Edemasia eximia, 
(After Packard; natural size.) 
Fig. 
562.—Larva of red-humped caterpillar-moth, (Edemasia eximia. (After Packard; 
natural size.) 
caterpillars keep closely together, forming rows or files of voracious feeders 
arranged neatly across each attacked leaf. The common species infesting 
the apple is Datana ministra , and the larvae have a distinguishing dull orange 
spot on the back of the first body-ring 
behind the head. The eggs, which are 
white and spherical, are laid, from 70 to 
100 by each female, on the leaves, all 
cemented well together in neat patches. 
When the larvae are full grown they 
descend from the tree, burrow into the 
soil for two or three inches, and change 
to naked brown chrysalids, which last 
over winter, the moths emerging in the following summer. The moth, 
expanding ij inches, is reddish or yellowish brown, with the fore wings 
crossed by from three to five darker brown lines, the outer margin and one 
Fig. 563. — Heterocampa guttivitta. 
(After Packard; natural size.) 
