Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/116

 108 CATERPILLAR CATERPILLAR FUNGUS single file, or two, three, and four abreast ; the line is so perfect in the columns, that the head of one is never beyond that of another in the row ; following their leader, stopping when he stops, they make journeys from tree to tree in search of food, returning to their nest in the same order ; they form their ranks, march, and halt, with the precision of soldiers ; when sev- eral nests are in the same wood, the spectacle of these creeping battalions, issuing forth and returning at the same hour, is exceedingly in- teresting ; the processions generally take place toward night. Another species, common in pine forests and living together, walk in pro- cessipn in single file, often very long, the head of each in contact with the tail of the one in advance ; they defile in a straight line, or in a variety of graceful curves ; they sometimes go to great distances from the nest, always with the same slow and grave step, following exactly their leader; they return to the nest by the same path, which they find not by the sense of sight but of touch ; the path of exit is covered as they go by a silken tapestry, and they return upon the same delicate carpet, however tortuous may have been their way. Caterpillars change their skins several times before attaining their perfect state, spinning for themselves a sort of cocoon of silk, interwoven with hairs of their own, with bits of leaves, and even with particles of earth, suspending themselves by silken threads, or burying themselves in the ground. (See BTTTERFLY, vol. iii., p. 495.) Those lepidop- tera which pass the winter in the egg live in the caterpillar form during a part of the sum- mer ; the eggs are protected against cold by the shell and by the sheltered or subterranean sit- uations in which they are placed ; others pass the winter as caterpillars, concealing themselves under stones and the bark of trees, or descend- ing deep into the ground where the cold cannot reach them ; the social varieties retire to their warm and water-proof nests ; these come forth in the spring quite well grown, but most pass the winter in the form of chrysalis, in protected or in open situations ; a few pass this season as perfect insects. The natural enemies of cater- pillars are numerous ; almost all insectivorous birds and poultry devour them eagerly; other insects not unfrequently feed upon them ; and little maggots developed in their bodies from the eggs of the ichneumonidce cause thousands to perish prematurely. In the northern states there are about 1,000 different kinds of butter- flies and moths ; as each female lays from 200 to 500 eggs, these species, from a single female each, would on an average produce in a year 300,000 caterpillars ; if one half of these were females, the second generation would be 45 mil- lions, and the third 6,750 millions; with such fecundity it may well be imagined that the destructive powers of caterpillars must be very great. The work of Dr. Harris on "The Insects Injurious to Vegetation," under the head of "Lepidoptera," gives an extended and valuable account of the ravages of caterpillars in America, particularly in New England. Al- luding to laws in France and Belgium which require the people to " uncaterpillar " their gardens and orchards, under the penalty of a fine, he thinks similar regulations might be enacted here with advantage, or at least that the towns might offer a respectable bounty for caterpillars by the quart, thus affording remu- nerative and highly useful employment to chil- dren and otherwise idle persons. For notices of many destructive caterpillars see HAWK MOTH, MOTH, and articles under the popular names of the most noted species. CATERPILLAR 1 1 M.I s or Fnngold Parasites, a name given to many species of fungi which attack various insects, especially the larvre of beetles and moths, filling out their bodies, and sending out shoots into the air, so that the animal looks as if transformed into a vegeta- ble. They have been generally described in works on botany, the plant portion having at- tracted the most attention. Mr. G. R. Gray has specially described the insect portion, ta- king them up in the usual order of entomologi- cal systems. These parasitical plants or fungi infest insects of all orders, and in the larva, pupa, and perfect states; some, however, are from their habitats peculiarly exposed to these growths. The beetles, many of which in all their stages live in the ground, amid decaying vegetable and animal matters, are very liable to these attacks ; the growth, no doubt, begins internally, as specimens have been found in which the fungus was just bursting forth from some part of the body ; the most usual place for the fungus to appear is from the pec- toral surface of the thoracic segments; tho larvaj usually lie upon that side, and are gen- erally found dead, and either decayed or dried up ; one parasite is ordinarily all that is found on one larva, but two, three, or more are oc- casionally found. The diurnal lepidoptera have not been seen infested with fungi or moulds, while the nocturnal ones are very much affect- ed ; the muscardine, which destroys great num- bers of the silkworm, belongs to this class of vegetable parasites. Among orthoptera, the mole cricket ; among hymenoptera, ants, bees, wasps, and hornets; among hemiptera, the cicada ; and among diptera, the flies, are often seen more or less covered with a delicate mould or fungus, which bursts out between the seg- ments of the body, and sometimes grows with great rapidity. From numerous observations, it is certain that life is not extinct when the insect becomes the basis of the parasite. Most of the insects thus affected are vegetable feed- ers, and it is generally admitted that the spores or seeds of the fungus are swallowed with the food, and that the seeds do not become at- tached to the exterior of the body and thence penetrate to the interior; some believe that the seeds may also gain admission by the tra- chero or breathing apparatus. These spores are so exceedingly minute as to appear like smoke in the air, and Fries has estimated