. Bulletin. Should you leave one of these egg-masses in place on thetree, and watch it in spring, you would see sometime in May,or early June, soon after the leaves burst through the buds,hundreds of tiny hairy caterpillars come forth from the mass,and crawl along the bark toward the leaf-bearing branches. 1 Orgyia leiuostigma. When the latter are reached, each caterpillar begins feedingupon the succulent green portions of the leaf. The young cat-erpillars are about one-sixth of an inch long, and thickly cov-ered on the back and sides with dark brown hairs. At the endof a week the larvae, as t
. Bulletin. Should you leave one of these egg-masses in place on thetree, and watch it in spring, you would see sometime in May,or early June, soon after the leaves burst through the buds,hundreds of tiny hairy caterpillars come forth from the mass,and crawl along the bark toward the leaf-bearing branches. 1 Orgyia leiuostigma. When the latter are reached, each caterpillar begins feedingupon the succulent green portions of the leaf. The young cat-erpillars are about one-sixth of an inch long, and thickly cov-ered on the back and sides with dark brown hairs. At the endof a week the larvae, as these caterpillars are often called, shedtheir skins, crawling out clothed in a new covering previouslyformed beneath the old one. They continue feeding soon afterthis first molt, and a week or two later again shed their skinsto provide for their increase in size. After another period offeeding a third molt takes place ; the caterpillars have by thistime become about an inch long, and are handsome Fig. 1.—Caterpillar of Tussock Moth. (After Riley.) The general color is yellow: the head and two tubercle-like projections on the hinder portion of the back are brightcoral red ; there are four cream colored tufts of hair along theback. Two long black plumes project forward from just be-hind the sides of the head, and another projects backward fromthe posterior end of the body. Along each side of the backthere runs a distinct yellow line ; and lower down the sidesthere is another yellow line, generally less distinct. About a week after the third molt a large proportion of thecaterpillars desert the leaves and seek the rough bark of thetrunk, where they spin loose, brownish, silken cocoons, within,which they transform to the pupa or chrysalis stage. Theseare the caterpillars which are to develop into male moths. Theother caterpillars remain upon the leaves, feeding freely andundergoing one or two additional molts as larvae before spinningcocoons. They finally spin up, how
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