SOCIAL NESTS. 
51 
the left; and if you looked at them through a 
glass, you would see the reason. Each cater¬ 
pillar is inclosed in a sheath of net-work, so 
delicate that the naked eye cannot see it. Thus 
they are not only housed, hut clothed in silk. 
In the course of their lives, the caterpillars make 
seven or eight of these hammocks ; for when 
they have eaten up all the leaves round them, 
they are obliged to move, and spin a tent some¬ 
where else. You may easily imagine that the 
poor apple-tree is greatly the sufferer from their 
appetites. 
But you remember the gold-tail moth, that 
plucked the down off her body to protect her 
eggs. Her eggs have now come into caterpillars, 
and the first that is hatched begins as a matter 
of course to eat. Then out comes another, and 
places itself on the leuf by its side. By and bye 
a third is added, and so on, until a row is formed 
from one side of the leaf to the other. A second 
row is then begun behind the first, and after 
this is completed, a third, till the whole surface 
of the leaf is covered with rows of caterpillars. 
But a single leaf will not contain all the 
family, and the rest have to take up their places 
on the neighbouring leaves. They eat voraciously, 
and with as much regularity as if they were 
executing a military manoeuvre. But they take 
