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LEPIDOPTEHAva. 147 
with stinging bristles, which cause such smarting and itching to 
our skin, and produce blisters upon it ? 
It has often been said that each plant has its own peculiar species 
of caterpillar. All we can say is, that a certain number of veget- 
ables only suit certain caterpillars. The species which eat roots 
are few; those which live in the interior of stalks or stems which 
they feed on are numerous, and those which nourish themselves on 
the pulp of fruits are rare. In general, after the leaves, the cater- 
pillars prefer the flowers ; in this they certainly do not show bad 
taste. Their growth is more or less rapid, according to the species, 
according to the nourishment they take, and according to the season 
of the year. Those whose food is succulent grow more rapidly than 
those which have for their food dry gramineous plants and coria- 
ceous lichens. Most of them eat at night, and remain during the 
day motionless, and as it were in a state of torpor; others are so 
voracious that they are constantly eating. This voracity is indeed 
sometimes surprising. Malpighi has observed that a silkworm 
often eats in a day a weight of mulberry leaves equal to its own 
weight. How could we provide our horses and oxen with pro- 
vender, if they required each day their own weight of hay and 
erass? There are even some caterpillars which ure still more 
voracious than that. Réaumur weighed several caterpillars of a 
species which lives on the cabbage, and gave them bits of cabbage 
leaves which weighed twice as much as their bodies. In less than 
twenty-four hours they had entirely consumed them. In this 
space of time their weight increased one-tenth. Fancy a man 
whose weight is 180 lbs. eating in one day 3860 lbs. of meat, and 
gaining 18 lbs. in weight! Caterpillars eat by the aid of two 
jaws or mandibles, so broad and solid that, considering the 
smallness of the insect, they are equivalent to all the teeth with 
} which large animals are furnished. It is by the alternate move- 
ment of these mandibles that the caterpillars devour the leaves 
with so much greediness and ease. 
‘A caterpillar, when it wants to gnaw the edge of a leaf,” says 
Réaumur, “ twists its body in such a way that at least one portion 
of the edge of this leaf is passed between its legs. These legs hold 
fast that portion of the leaf which is to be cut by the insect’s 
jaws (Fig. 101). To give the first bite, the caterpillar elongates 
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