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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 Excerpt:...leaves of fruit and other trees about this season is the caterpillar of the small Ermine Moth (Yponomeuta padella). The Apple, the Hawthorn, and the Bird Cherry are particularly subject to the attacks of this insect, and in the month of July they may be seen completely covered with webs, which hang suspended from their branches in festoons, sometimes reaching the ground and even spreading over the earth beneath the tree. It is peculiar in this insect that it is found in numbers together, notonly in its caterpillar but in its pupa state, the caterpillars feeding together under the shelter of a web, as shown at a, in Jig. 75., and the cocoons being AJbranch attacked by'ihe Larva and Pupaf of the small Ermine Moth. formed under the shelter of a similar web, as shown at b. The webs under which the caterpillars feed, Mr. Westwood informs us, "are quitted from time to time, and new encampments established at short distances from each other: hence each brood constructs several webs in the course of its caterpillar state; the reason of which is, that the caterpillars do not quit their webs to feed, but only eat such leaves as are enclosed in each web. The number of inhabitants in a colony varies from one hundred to two hundred; and hence the more numerous the colony, the more frequently is a change of residence required. These webs consist of a great number of threads, 224 not unlike spider webs, arranged somewhat irregularly, but sufficiently loose to enable the inhabitants to be seen through the covering. The caterpillars eat only the parenchyma of the upper-side of the leaf; they also arrange their threads longitudinally, each, apparently, having a thread of its own, along which it moves, either backwards or forwards, without disturbing its neighbours, whic...