Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/371

 CATERPILLAR AND THE MOTH

months' solitary confinement in this most inhuman posi- tion. Yet, if artificially liberated, the prisoner takes no advantage of the freedom offered. TlSough it can move a little, it remains coiled (A) and will fold up again if forcibly straightened, thus asserting that it is more com- fortable than it looks. It is surprising that these infant caterpillars can remain inactive in their eggshells all through the summer, when the warmth spurs the vitality of other species and speeds them up to their most rapid growth and development.

External conditions in general appear to have much to do with regulating the lives of insects, and if the tent caterpillars in their eggs seem to give proof that the crea- tures are hOt entirely the slaves of environ- ment, the truth is probably that all in- sects are hOt gov- erned by the same

Fro. 166. The young tent caterpillar fully formed within the egg by the middle of summer A, the young caterpillar removed from the egg. B, the caterpillar in natural position within the egg

conditions. We have seen that some of the grasshoppers and some of the aphids will hot complete their develop- ment except after being subjected to freezing tempera- tures, and so it probably is with the tent caterpillars-- it is hot warmth, but a period of cold that furnishes the condition necessary to the final completion of their de-- velopment. Whatever mav.be the secret source of their patience, however, the young tent caterpillars will bide their time through all the heat of summer, the cold of winter, and hot till the buds of the cherry or apple leaves are ready to open the following spring will they awake and gnaw through the inclosing shells against which their faces have been pressing all this while.

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