Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/336



reduced to this extremity by its own feeding, but produced similar conditions for one in a small apple tree by removing all the leaves. This was on May 9, and the caterpillars were mostly in their fifth stage. At seven o'clock in the evening the cater- pillars in this col- ony came out as usual, and, after « doing the cus- tomary spinning on the tent, started off to get their dinner, sus- pecting nothing till they came to the cut-off ends of the branches. Then they were clearly bewildered .--they returned and tried the course over again ; they tried another branch, all the other branches; but all ended alike in bare stumps. Yet there were the accus- tomed trails, and their instincts Fla. 149. Twigs of choke cherry and of apple de- c]ear]y said that nuded by tent caterpillars silk paths led to food. So all night the caterpillars hunted for the missing leaves; they went over and over the same courses, but none ventured be]ow the upper part of the trunk. By 3:45 in the morning

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