114 



six or eight years' growth, as long as the frost had not injured 

 it, which, however, generally happened soon after they were 

 found. As soon as their food was withheld, or offered in 

 an injured condition, they left the leafless twigs, retired to the 

 sides of the compartments in which they were confined, secured 

 their pods slightly by a few threads, and made no preparation 

 to enter into the pupa state (which would be inferred from the 

 circumstance that the anterior and posterior aperture of their 

 domiciles remained unclosed), but remained in the larva state 

 during the winter. About the latter end of March, after crawl- 

 ing about their confinement for a day, apparently in search of 

 a more natural place to enter into the pupa state than what 

 their small compartments afforded, they rested where they had 

 passed the winter, attached themselves now more firmly to their 

 resting place, closed both extremities of their pods, and about 

 midsummer assumed their final or imago state. Some of the 

 larvas were repeatedly dislodged from, their cases, and then 

 placed on a leaf of their food, with their empty cases beside 

 them j but in this exposed state they remained quiet, not at- 

 tempting to eat or reenter their empty pods ; during the night 

 following the day of their expulsion, they fabricated new pods 

 out of the leaves on which they had been placed. You have 

 doubtless observed the curious little door, or circular lid, hinged 

 at the anterior aperture of the case. The posterior one through 

 which the obliquely truncated tail of the larva protruded before 

 it assumed the pupa, has, as may be expected, no such lid, but 

 is permanently closed. 



I have several times raised the beautiful moth which you 

 have so accurately figured in your letter under 716 \_Notodonta 

 sexguttata Harr. See beyond, Harris to Doubleday, March 

 "24, 1849]. The moth and its larva are also rare with us. 

 The following is a detailed description of the larva and its 

 transformations, which I copy from my entomological diaiy : 

 " Head small, free, polished, blackish, sparingly beset with 

 white seta? ; cheeks each with two obsolete, roundish, red spots ; 



