42 
SOLITARY NESTS. 
to manage better than either yon or I do. It fixes 
its silken threads from one side of the leaf to the 
other, and then going to the middle, pulls the 
threads tight by bending them with its feet, 
until the edges of the leaf touch each other. 
Then it glues the threads down, so as to prevent 
the leaf starting back. Thus while we have been 
looking at it, it has made itself a nest, where it 
may live undisturbed; for the mother moth has 
only laid one egg upon the leaf. It will feed in 
its little green gallery, hidden from the birds 
that are hopping ^bout, and ready, the moment 
they see it, to snap it up. 
There is another caterpillar on the lilac-tree, 
but it proceeds in rather a different manner. 
Instead of drawing the two edges of the leaf 
together, it begins at the tip of the leaf, and 
rolls it round and round like a piece of parchment. 
It manages this as its neighbour did, by means 
of its silken threads, firmly fixed from the end of 
the leaf to the middle vein. After it has fixed 
one thread, it draws it towards itself bv the hooks 
of its feet, and then spins another shorter thread, 
which it again pulls tight, until the leaf begins 
to roll. It goes on in this way for some time, 
and then spins a second set of threads, fixing 
them much further back upon the bent part of 
the leaf, so that the leaf is again rolled round. 
