307 



curved at the point; and the discoidal cell of the hind wings is said to he 

 open. As far as the transformations of these insects have been observed 

 and described, it appears that their caterpillars are sparingly covered with 

 hairs, and envelop themselves in silken cocoons; those of the New Hol- 

 land genus, Agarista, are fastened to the steins of the plants on which the 

 caterpillars live, and those of the North American species, now constituting 

 the genus Alypia, are made upon, or just beneath the surface of the ground. 

 In Eudryas the antennae are not fusiform, and not curved at the end; the 

 discoidal cell of the hind wings is closed by a nervure, or vein; the cater- 

 pillar is not at all hairy, and buries itself in the ground without making 

 any kind of cocoon whatever. It must nevertheless be confessed that there 

 is a striking resemblance in the form and coloring of the caterpillars of 

 Agarista ylycince, Alypia octomaculata and Eudryas grata] and, moreover, 

 the last two live upon the grape vine, and their postures are exactly alike. 

 Taking into consideration those characters in which the caterpillars agree, 

 we must admit that Dr. Boisduval had some reason for placing Eudryas 

 near to Agarista and ^Eyocera, as he has done on the fourteenth plate in 

 the first volume of his Species general des Lepidopteres. Some of the Eng- 

 lish entomologists, whom I have consulted, think that Eudryas ought to be 

 put among the Noctucc near to Acontia and Euphasia, in which opinion I 

 cannot agree with them; for the caterpillar of E, grata has all its legs 

 perfect, and does not arch the body in creeping. On account of its 

 hairless body, the humped tail, like that of Notodonta dictcea, the want of 

 a cocoon, in Avhich it agrees with Pyg&ra, and its simple and tapering an- 

 tennas, which, with other characters, seem to me to exclude it from the 

 Agaristiadce, I still leave it, although with some hesitation, among the 

 Notodontiadce, where I had first placed it. 



Astasia torrefacta? Sm.-Abb. 



July 23, 1828. Found on the burdock; eats leaves of willow well. Body 

 cylindrical, above pale yellow, beneath greenish black. Segments very dis- 

 tinct, almost annulose, sides and incisures greenish yellow, head of same 

 color, tips of mandibles black; no tubercles, but the body is covered with 

 lanuginous hairs, flexuous backwards, of a pale sulphur color; second seg- 

 ment above, with a long plume of ferruginous hairs, directed a little forwards; 

 the same segment has a conspicuous, transverse, oval spot each side; third 

 segment with a black spot each side; fourth to ninth inclusive with an inter- 

 rupted black line or on each a linear, dorsal, black spot furnishing a short 

 fascicle of a few erect black hairs; legs blackish; prolegs thick at base, pyri- 

 form or tapering at tip, and furnished with a semicircular, unguiferous, red 

 plate. The hairs are all simple or unbearded. 



July 24th, A. M. Cast its skin. The wool which now covers it is of a 



