4-1 6 
The Moths and Butterflies 
twig of an apple or wild-cherry tree; the eggs do not hatch until the follow¬ 
ing spring, when the young larvae feed on the buds and young leaves of the 
tree. The social larvae build a little web or nest in the fork of a branch, 
going out of it only to feed. As the 
caterpillars grow they enlarge the web 
until it becomes a bulky ugly affair 
perhaps two feet long, partly filled with 
excrement and cast skins. The full- 
grown caterpillars are blackish with 
yellow and bluish spots, white striped 
along the back, and covered with fine 
yellowish hairs. “They feed on the 
young and tender leaves, and eating 
on an average two leaves a day the 
young of one pair of moths consume 
from ten to twelve hundred leaves, and 
Fig. 597> —Venation of Halesidota tessel- as it is not uncommon to find from six 
lata, cs, costal vein; sc, subcostal to eight nests on a single tree not less 
c, cubital vein; a, anal veins. (After than seventy-five thousand leaves are 
Comstock; enlarged.) devoured, a loss which no tree can long 
endure.” In about forty days the larvae 
are ready to pupate, when they scatter from the nest, find sheltered places 
under eaves, fence-rails, etc., and spin spindle-shaped cocoons of white, 
almost transparent silk, within which they change. After twenty to twenty- 
five days of pupal life the winged moths issue and soon after lay their 
eggs for next year’s brood. The life-history of the various other species 
is similar to this although other trees are chosen for feeding-grounds. 
The lappet-moths, so-called from the curious lobes or lappets arranged 
along the sides of their caterpillars, are of several species. Tolype velleda , 
expanding ij to if inches, has a white body with a black spot and dusky- 
gray wings crossed by white lines; its caterpillar feeds on the foliage of 
apple-, cherry-, and plum-trees, and is hair-fringed and protectively colored so 
that it looks much like an excrescence of the bark on which it habitually 
lies when not feeding. Gastropacha americana (Fig. 601), the American 
lappet-moth, expanding ij inches, is so like a dead leaf in appearance that 
it can hardly be distinguished when at rest; it varies somewhat in color, 
but most individuals are reddish brown with a broad interrupted whitish 
band across both wings; the hinder and outer edges of the fore wings and 
the outer edges of the hind wings are deeply notched. The caterpillar feeds 
on apple, cherry, and oak, hiding during the day but becoming active at 
night. It is broad, convex above and flat beneath, ash-gray with fringes 
of blackish or gray hairs, and when at rest it is almost impossible to recognize. 
