Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/166

136 of this moth:—"During the present year (1833), this beautiful moth will be unusually abundant in the vicinity of Philadelphia, judging from the number of cocoons which are to be seen hanging from the branches of the sassafras (Laurus sassafras) and spice-wood (L. benzoin). The casual observer would no doubt suppose them to be merely withered leaves that have withstood the blasts of winter, for such they were evidently intended to resemble, by the little architect, when preparing its narrow cell. The naturalist, however, is not to be thus deceived, as a boy and myself collected from three to four hundred specimens during short winter rambles in the neighbourhood. "The perfect insects appear about the end of May and beginning of June, at which time the leaves of the sassafras, spice-wood, and swamp button-wood (Cephalanthus occidentalis) have attained a sufficient size to afford a plentiful supply of food to the caterpillar; the parent insect most commonly selecting those trees for the sustenance of her future progeny, and depositing her eggs on or near the leaves which have been chosen for that purpose. "The caterpillar casts its skin three or four times, increasing in bulk and brilliancy of colour with each change, and finally attains the size represented in the figure; it then loses the voracious appetite which had hitherto been its predominant character, and begins its preparations for the great transformation it is to undergo, by selecting a perfect leaf, the upper surface of which it covers with a