STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 401 



GRAPK. LEAVES. 



attached to the under side of boards, billets of wood, and in 

 similar sheltered situations. The cocoon is about 0.85 long, oval 

 with the ends rounded, of a dirty gray or pale brown color, and 

 with the hairs of the caterpillar woven into its outer surface. The 

 moth of this species is most common in May and June, but spe- 

 cimens occur at all times, coming out even in winter in stove- 

 warmed rooms in which caterpillars have happened to secrete 

 themselves. It is snow white with a black dot in the centre of its 

 wings, and the hind part of its body has a row of black spots 

 above and another along each side, with a bright ochre-yellow 

 stripe between, and the forward hips and thighs in front are also 

 of this last color. Width across the wings 1.50 to 2.00. The 

 caterpillars are not stationary, but wander about and feed on a 

 great variety of leaves, eating their edges irregularly; and they 

 seem to regard the texture rather than the taste of their food, for 

 I have noticed them in the greatest numbers upon trees and plaul^s 

 whose leaves are most soft and tender, withering from the slightest 

 touch of frost, such as the convolvulus, bean, grape, butternut, 

 &c. See Harris's Treatise, p. 268. 



126. Spotted-winged sable, i>esmta maculalis, ^esiwood. (Lcpidoptera. 

 Pyralidae.) 



The side of the leaf rolled into a cylinder and tied with silken 

 threads, with a slender slightly tapering worm residing therein,0.90 

 long, leaf green, having a black U-shaped mark upon its neck and 

 black spots upon the following ring; the pupa formed in the same 

 place, the moth coming out the last of June and in July, of a black 

 brown color with two large roundish snow-white spots on the fore 

 wings and the hind wings with a white band across the middle, 

 (biu^ken apart in the female,) and with two white bands on the 

 abdomen. Width 0.75 to 1.15. Tliis miiy frequently be met 

 with in all parts of the United States. The males are readily 

 distinguished from all the other insects of the order Lepidoptera 

 by a most remarkable peculiarity. Their antenna* are elbowed, sim- 

 ilar to those of the weevils, and ants and bees. They have a little 

 brush-like tuft of hairs in their middle, jutting out upon one side, 

 their first joint being long and thickened towards its tip. See 

 Patent Office Report, 1854, p. 78. 



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