In the month of July they start weaving their cocoons, in which they remain for seventeen days. A couple of weeks after their eggs are hatched, and the young caterpillars run up the tree, and feed from the end of August, during autumn, winter, and spring.
Among the smaller moths are the Pearl-moths, with long slender bodies, wings longer than broad, and often with a pearly lustre, one or two species of which are common among nettles. We may also mention the Snout-moth, a brown slender-bodied moth, with a pointed beak projecting in front of the head, likewise a common insect among nettles. The Grass-moths are small moths, with narrow whitish fore wings, and broad brownish hind wings, which they wrap round their bodies when at rest. They are common in every field and meadow. The Bell-moths have broad truncated fore wings, and rounded hind wings. A species belonging to this family, with green fore wings and brown hind wings, may be shaken from every oak-tree in summer, and at the same time numbers of its little green caterpillars will drop themselves down, and remain swinging at the end of a thread, till they think that the danger is past, when they climb up again.
Photo by C. N. Mavroyeni] [Smyrna.
CYPRESS-MOTHS.
The inside of the cocoons, showing the pupæ.
The Clothes-moths, familiar to everybody, are representatives of an enormous family of small moths, comprising nearly two-thirds of the British species, but only a few live in houses. Most have narrow wings with long fringes, and many feed in tortuous galleries which they eat in the substance of leaves. Some are among the smallest moths known.
The White Plume-moth, which may be noticed floating about in weedy places like a piece of thistle-down, is a representative of a small family in which the fore wings are divided into three separate feathers, and the hind wings into two. The other species are brown, and smaller. When at rest, they look like small daddy-long-legs.
The Twenty-plume Moth is a yellowish-grey species, less than an inch in expanse, often to be seen at rest on windows or palings. It might easily be taken for a small looper-moth, but that each wing is split into six feathers.
Silkworms.