Page:Handbook for Boys.djvu/124

Rh. On the back of the second segment of the thorax there is a pair of black, whiplash-like filaments, and on the eighth joint there is a similar shorter pair. When this caterpillar

gets ready to transform to chrysalis, it hangs itself up by its tail end, the skin splits and gradually draws back, and the chrysalis itself is revealed—pale pea-green in color with golden spots. Any one by hunting over a patch of milkweed anywhere in the United States during the summer is quite apt to find these caterpillars feeding. It will be easy to watch them and to see them transform, and eventually to get the Larva getting ready to butterfly.

The same thing my be done with any one of the six hundred and fifty-two different kinds of butterflies found in the United States.

Moths When it comes to moths, there is a much greater variety.

Instead of six hundred and fifty-two, there are fifty-nine hundred and seventy in Doctor Dyar's big catalogue. Perhaps the most interesting of these caterpillars are the big native silk-worms, like those of the cecropia moth, the luna moth, the polyphemus moth, or the promethia moth. These caterpillars are very large and are to be found feeding upon the leaves of different trees, and all spin strong silken cocoons. People have tried to reel these cocoons, thinking that they might be able to use the silk to make silk cloth as with the domestic silk-worm of commerce, but thay have been unable to reel them properly. The polyphemus moth, for example, has been experimented with a great deal. It is found over a greater part of the United States, and its caterpillar feeds upon a great variety of trees and shrubs such as oak, butternut, hickory, basswood, elm, maple, birch, chestnut, sycamore, and many others. The caterpillar is light green and has raised lines of silvery white on the side. It grows to a very large size and spins a dense, hard cocoon, usually attached to larvæ