a Polyphemus caterpillar ten days old weighs one half grain, or
ten times its original weight; at twenty days three grains, or
sixty times its first weight; and so on until at fifty-six days
it weighs two hundred and seven grains, or four thousand one hundred
and forty times its first weight. To this he adds one half ounce
of water and concludes: "So the food taken by a single silkworm in
fifty-six days equals in weight eighty-six thousand times the
primitive weight of the worm." This is a far cry from eating
eighty-six thousand times its own weight in a day and upholds in
part my contention in the first chapter, that people attempting to
write upon these subjects "are not always rightly informed."

When the feeding period is finished in freedom, the caterpillar,
if hairless, must be ready to evolve from its interior, the
principal part of the winter quarters characteristic of its species
while changing to the moth form, and in the case of non-feeders,
sustenance for the lifetime of the moth also. Similar to the moth,
the caterpillar is made up of three parts, head, thorax, and abdomen,
with the organs and appendages of each. Immediately after moulting
the head appears very large, and seems much too heavy for the size
of the body. At the end of a feeding period and just previous to
another moult the body has grown until the head is almost lost from
sight, and it now seems small and insignificant; so that the appearance
of a caterpillar depends on whether you examine it before or after
moulting.

The head is made up of rings or segments, the same as the body, but
they are so closely set that it seems to be a flat, round, or
pointed formation with discernible rings on the face before casting
time. The eyes are of so simple form that they are supposed only