R.]

A comparatively small number of insects pass the winter in the larval
or active stage of the young. Of these, perhaps the best known is the
brown "woolly worm" or "hedgehog caterpillar," as it is familiarly
called. It is thickly covered with stiff black hairs on each end, and
with reddish hairs on the middle of the body. These hairs appear to be
evenly and closely shorn, so as to give the animal a velvety look; and
as they have a certain degree of elasticity, and the caterpillar curls
up at the slightest touch, it generally manages to slip away when
taken into the hand. Beneath loose bark, boards, rails, and stones,
this caterpillar may be found in mid-winter, coiled up and apparently
lifeless. On the first bright, sunny days of spring it may be seen
crawling rapidly over the ground, seeking the earnest vegetation which
will furnish it a literal "breakfast." In April or May the chrysalis,
surrounded by a loose cocoon formed of the hairs of the body
interwoven with coarse silk, may be found in situations similar to
those in which the larva passed the winter. From this, the perfect
insect, the Isabella tiger moth, _Pyrrharctia isabella_ Smith, emerges
about the last of June. It is a medium sized moth, dull orange in
color, with three rows of small black spots on the body, and some
scattered spots of the same color on the wings.

By breaking open rotten logs one can find in mid-winter the grubs or
larvae of many of the wood-boring beetles, and, beneath logs and stones
near the margins of ponds and brooks, hordes of the maggots or larvae
of certain kinds of flies may often be found huddled together in great
masses. The larvae of a few butterflies also live over winter beneath
chips or bunches of leaves near the roots of their food plant, or in
webs of their own construction, which are woven on the stems close to
the buds, whose expanding leaves will furnish them their first meal in
spring.

Many insects pass the winter in the quiescent or pupal stage; a state
exceedingly well fitted for hibernating, requiring as it does, no
food, and giving plenty of time for the marvellous changes which are
then undergone. Some of these pupae are enclosed in dense silken
cocoons, which are bound to the twigs of the plants upon which the
larvae feed, and thus they swing securely in their silken hammocks
through all the storms of winter. Perhaps the most common of these is
that of the brown Cecropian moth, _Attacus cecropia_ L., the