The Moths and Butterflies 409 



which are light brown with many fine black lines and one broad orange 

 band across each segment and head and cervical shield deep orange with 

 black dots, feed on the Virginia creeper, sometimes on the grape, and often 

 are so abundant as to injure the plants seriously. The caterpillar is nearly 

 i^ inches long when full grown, and burrows into soft or rotten wood to 

 pupate, or failing this pupates on or just below the surface of the ground. 



The beautiful wood-nymph, Eudryas grata (Fig. 590) (classed by 

 some entomologists with the Noctuidae), is very different in color and 

 pattern, having milk-white fore wings broadly bordered and marked with 

 brownish purple and with two indistinct brownish spots in the center. 

 The under surface of these wings is reddish yellow. The hind wings are 

 yellow with a pale purplish-brown border. The head is black and there 

 is a wide black stripe along the back of the thorax, breaking up into a 

 series of spots along the abdomen. The caterpillar is much like that of 

 the eight-spotted forester and feeds on the same plants. "The moth, which 

 is active at night and sometimes attracted to electric lights in large numbers, 

 is very often discovered during the day upon the surface of the leaves of its 

 food-plants. Its closed wings form a steep roof over its back, and its four 

 legs, which have a curious muff-like tuft of white hairs, are protruded and 

 give the insect a very peculiar appearance." 



The grape-vine Epimenis, Psychomorpha epimenis, is a small velvety 

 black Agaristid moth with a broad, irregularly lunate, white patch across 

 the outer third of the fore wing and a somewhat larger and more regular 

 patch of orange-red or brick-red on the hind wings. Its bluish caterpillar 

 feeds on grape-leaves. 



Delicate and pretty are the little footman-moths, Lithosiidae, in their 

 liveries of drab or slate, yellow or scarlet, and with their slender bodies 

 and trimly narrow fore wings. The larvae of but few species are known; 

 they mostly feed on lichens and have the body covered with short stiff 

 hairs. Because these caterpillars are not injurious but little attention 

 has been given to the life-history of the footman-moths, and the amateur 

 has here an opportunity to add to our knowledge of insects in an order 

 popularly supposed to be pretty well "worked out." 



The moths themselves although few in number of species are well dis- 

 tributed over the country, although the southwestern and Pacific states 

 have really more than their share. Two common eastern species are 

 the striped footman, Hypoprepia miniata, and the painted footman, 

 H. fuscosa, each expanding about i inch. The first is brick-scarlet, with 

 two longitudinal broad plumbeous bars and the distal half of a third on 

 the fore wing and a broad outer slaty border on the hind wings. The 

 latter has almost the same pattern, but the ground color is distinctly yellowish 

 red in place of scarlet or brown-red. Another common eastern Lithosiid 



