. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. 94 Animal Life Nature again comes to their aid, providing them with a colour more in tone with the bark and earth over which they sometimes crawl before reaching a suitable place on which to spin their cocoons. It is an interesting sight to watch puss larvae select nice comfortable crevices in the bark; they are decidedly fastidious, putting a few threads of silk down, then turning away like a dissatisfied customer at a draper's shop. I always give a good selection of willow stumps and virgin cork, of which they are very fon
. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. 94 Animal Life Nature again comes to their aid, providing them with a colour more in tone with the bark and earth over which they sometimes crawl before reaching a suitable place on which to spin their cocoons. It is an interesting sight to watch puss larvae select nice comfortable crevices in the bark; they are decidedly fastidious, putting a few threads of silk down, then turning away like a dissatisfied customer at a draper's shop. I always give a good selection of willow stumps and virgin cork, of which they are very fond: it is soft to their teeth and full of convenient crevices. On one willow branch (Fig. 5) I watched the entire operation. The larva first went over the surface, trying it with its mouth and spinning organ. After careful measurement, it com- menced at the top end by stretching a few strong silken threads across from the highest points; to these were attached cross-threads, forming a very coarse mesh. Drawing the body slightly underneath this network, it turned its head backward and worked. Fig. 2. Young Caterpillar of Fuss-Moth Puss Caterpillar in its New Dre the network over the middle of its body. Then, curling itself round, it stretched the network to its full capacity, bringing its head on a level with the tail, working the silken threads over and just beyond the latter, which was soon covered in, a small aperture being left open about the centre. An occasional pause was made in the spinning to permit of the larva biting off small pieces of bark, which it carefully forced between the viscid meshes; these pieces were equally distributed over the surface of the cocoon except at the top end, which was left clear and not so thick as the main part. When the larva had completely covered itself in with the coarse network of silk and fixed the small pieces of bark over the surface, it ejected a quantity of viscid fluid, with which it washed all over the inside of the cocoon, givin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1902
