Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/322

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times the tops of the eggs are entirely bare. The eggs are placed in a single layer next the bark (Fig. 144 B), and there are usually 300 or 400 of them. They look like little, pale-gray porcelain jars packed closely together and glued to the twig by their rounded and somewhat compressed lower ends. The tops are fiat or a little convex. Each egg is the twenty-fourth of an inch in height, about two-thirds of this in width, and bas a capacity of one caterpillar. The covering is usually hall again as deep as the height of the eggs, but varies in thick- ness in different specimens. The outer surface is smooth and polished, but the interior is full of irregular, many- sided a?r spaces, separated from one another by rhin partitions (B). V?'herever the covering of an egg mass bas been broken away, the bases of the partition walls leave brown lines that look like cords strapped and tied into an irregular net over the eggs (B), as if for double security against insurrection on the part of the inmates. But neither shells nor fastenings will offer effective resistance to the little caterpillars when they are taken with the urge for ffeedom. Each is provided with efficient cutting in- struments in the form of sharp-toothed jaws that will enable it to open a round hole through the roof of its cell (Fig. I44 C). The superstructure is then easily pene- trated, and the emerging caterpillar finds itself on the surface of its former prison, along with several hundred brothers and sisters when all are out. All this time the members of that unfortunate brood we noted first have been clinging benumbed and motion- less to the silk network on the covering of their deserted eggs. The cold continues, the clouds are threatening, and during the afternoon the hapless creatures are drenched by hard and chilling tains. Through the night foliowing they are tossed in a northwest gale, while the temperature drops below freezing. The next day the wind continues, and frost comes again at night. For three

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