When the little caterpillar of the Cecropia Moth has eaten its way out of the egg, and makes its first meal on the empty egg-shell, it presents itself to us as a little, slim, black creature, with shining black knobs on its body, from which arise hairs of the same color. Being blessed with an excellent appetite, its growth is very rapid; and soon its skin becomes uncomfortably tight, when it is ruptured, and after much labor the little thing wriggles itself out of it; which process is repeated several times before the caterpillar attains its full growth. After each of these changes, or moultings, as they are called, the larvæ appears in an altered as well as an enlarged garment, and finally, when full grown, it attains the size and assumes the appearance presented in Fig. 3, and a very handsome creature it is. Its body is of a pale green color, and is ornamented with large warts or tubercles; these are coral red on the third and fourth rings of the body, while all the others are yellow, excepting those on the second and terminal segments, and the smaller tubercles along the sides, which are blue.
FIG. 4.
FIG. 5.
During its rapid and enormous growth it consumes an immense amount of vegetable food, and especially as it approaches maturity is its voracious appetite apparent. Where one or two have been placed on a young apple tree, they will often strip it entirely bare before they have done with it, and greatly damage the tree, and sometimes endanger its life by preventing the proper ripening of the wood.
FIG. 6.
FIG. 7.