November, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
539 
cultivation of these worms may be obtained 
in the shape of moths, cocoons, eggs and 
caterpillars, the cocoon state being, on the 
whole, the most satisfactory. In length, 
the cecropia cocoons vary from somewhat 
over an inch (very small) to three inches 
(very large). Some are slender and com¬ 
pactly spun, others are loosely spun and 
baggy. They vary in color, when fresh 
being brownish, and when weathered some¬ 
what silvery. They are more pointed at 
one end than the other. Careful examina¬ 
tion of this pointed end shows that the 
threads were broken and then puckered to¬ 
gether in the process of spinning. The 
Cecropia Cocoon—Showing Details 
cocoon is usually attached to the side of 
the twig, branch, tree-trunk, or stalk, on 
which the caterpillar has chosen to spin. 
The caterpillar may elect to spin on its 
food-plant, or it may wander away and 
spin on almost any suitable stalk or twig. 
Its cocoon has been found on maple, wil¬ 
low, woodbine, oak, plum, elder, wild 
cherry, spicewood, apple, pear, nettle, wild 
hemlock, sumach, ailanthus, and other va¬ 
rieties “too numerous to mention.” 
Promethea Cocoons, at Left; Showing 
Method of Attachment 
It is worth while to look almost any¬ 
where in a locality in which the cocoons 
are being found. Usually there is more 
or less of a little colony discoverable 
where a single cocoon has been discovered. 
You may pick a cocoon plastered to the 
trunk of a tree at its very root, or at¬ 
tached to a shoot but a few inches from 
the ground. As you glance up, you notice 
the brown baggy bunch, thirty feet in the 
air, spun alongside the tip of a twig. No 
place is too unusual or insignificant to be 
overlooked, though one soon develops a 
special sense in searching. 
Y OUR equipment for cocoon-hunting 
need not be elaborate. There are 
some things that are helpful, if not 
really necessary. You can put the cocoons 
you find in your pocket, if you wish, al¬ 
though there is danger of crushing them. 
An empty bag, or a box of some kind is a 
better method. If you are abroad in the 
spring, when the moth is laying its eggs, 
some little paper or tin boxes will make 
good receptacles for your “finds.” In the 
same season, you will need larger boxes, in 
which to put any moths you may capture, 
and a net will be necessary for taking the 
specimens you may find. In summer, or 
early fall, the caterpillar season, some 
boxes large enough to hold your captures, 
without crushing them, will be advisable. 
As for clothing, wear the oldest and tough¬ 
est you have. It is not specially conducive 
to the beauty of head-, foot-, or body-gear 
to go crushing through bushes, briers, and 
shrubs, over bogs and swamps, or to 
swarm up trees and into those places, dif¬ 
ficult of access, in which some caterpillars 
seem to have taken a fiendish delight to 
spin. An umbrella, with a crook for a 
handle, is helpful in pulling down branches 
or twigs, just out of one’s reach, where 
frequently fat cocoons are attached. A 
fishline, with a weight on the end, is serv¬ 
iceable for bringing down within reach 
those branches a little too high for the 
umbrella. If you are working among trees 
of any size, a long pole, with a triangle 
hook attached, will enable you to reach 
cocoons spun by worms of the most aspir¬ 
ing spirit. The most valuable item in your 
equipment you will not be able to take with 
you at first, as it is supplied only by ex¬ 
perience—a general ability to distinguish 
good territory from bad and to “smell out” 
every specimen in the locality. 
Let us suppose it is fall, or early winter, 
and you are hunting cecropia and polvphe- 
A Hard One—in a Berry Patch 
mus. You should follow along the road 
or street, studying carefully the trees and 
shrubbery. Luckily enough for the hunter, 
cotoons as a rule are not found in high, 
dense vegetation, or inside of groves or 
woods. Circle around the outside of such 
places, studying carefully every tree and 
shrub, low or high. Examine any tuft of 
leaves or protuberance on twig or trunk. 
Pass over nothing that at all suggests what 
you are in search of. Sometimes it is a 
good plan to study a clump of bushes or 
a tree from one direction, and then slowly 
circle it so that the light will be thrown on 
the leaves and limbs from various angles. 
If you are in the street, you may collect 
a small crowd anxious to see “what the 
gink is rubberin’ at.” A true explorer 
never pays any attention to little things 
like that. A vacant city lot, which has 
Promethea—Half-grown Worm, Adult, 
and New Cocoon, On the Same Bush 
many or few bushes, stumps with sprouts 
springing from them, little, weazened trees, 
that almost apologize for living, sometimes 
yield surprising finds. A lane in the sub¬ 
urbs, with trees and bushes on either side, 
furnishes good hunting-ground. If there 
is a wall on either side, with a vine of some 
sort growing upon it, you may find that 
careful search will reveal brown, baggy 
bunches that prove to be cecropia cocoons. 
Patches of scrub white birch or spice-bush 
Cecropia Cocoons, Showing Differences 
in Size and Shape 
should always be carefully examined, as 
such places often harbor many cocoons. 
(to be continued next month) 
