This is easily explained by the fact that while in the full
grown worm the abdominal legs, or pro legs, are nearly equal in length,
in the newly hatched worm the second pair are slightly shorter than the
third, and the first pair are shorter and slenderer than the second--a
state of things approaching that in the full grown cotton worm, though
the difference in size in the former case is not nearly so marked as in
the latter. This method of walking is lost with the first or second
molt. There is nothing remarkable about these young larvae. They seem to
be thicker in proportion to their length than the young cotton worms,
and they have not so delicate and transparent an appearance. Their heads
are black and their bodies seem already to have begun to vary in color.
The body above is furnished with sparse, stiff hairs, each arising from
a tubercle. I have often watched the newly hatched boll while in the
cotton fields. When hatched from an egg which had been deposited upon a
leaf, they invariably made their first meal on the substance of the
leaf, and then wandered about for a longer or shorter space of time,
evidently seeking a boll or flower bud. It was always interesting to
watch this seemingly aimless search of the young worm, crawling first
down the leaf stem and then back, then dropping a few inches by a silken
thread and then painfully working its way back again, until, at last, it
found the object of its search, or fell to the ground where it was
destroyed by ants.
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