STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 457 



HICKORY. LEAVES. 



out the beginning of July, of a bright red color with two yellow 

 stripes on the thorax, its fore wings olive grayish or lead-colored 

 with red stripes on the veins and light yellow oval spots mostly 

 in a row parallel witli the hind margin, the hind wings paler red 

 with their anterior outer border and a large irregular triangulai 

 snot on their inner side light yellow. Width 5.00 to 6.00. 



The larva of this splendid insect feeds upon the butternut and 

 sumach as well as on the walnut and hickory, and at the south 

 it is common upon the persimmon also. Its large size and long 

 horns with branching priciiles give it a truly formidable aspect, 

 from whence it has acquired the name of " The horned devil " 

 among the negroes at the south. It may be handled, however, 

 without harm, as its prickles do not possess the power of stinging 

 which belongs to those of the lo larva; and this frightful looking 

 worm eventually becomes one of the largest, prettiest insects of 

 our country. It is rarely met with in our State and only in its 

 southern part. Some of its eggs sent in a letter from Philadelphia 

 by Mr. George Newman enabled me to rear this insect and observe 

 its transformations, and from these the specimen of the larva in 

 the Entomological Museum of the Society was obtained. When 

 reared in a colder climate than that to which it is native it is 

 retarded beyond its usual period in completing its transformations, 

 and thus its young do not have sufficient time to attain their 

 growth before the season closes. It is therefore impossible to 

 naturalize this elegant insect in the middle and northern parts of 

 our State. The eggs sent me hatched mostly upon the 22d of 

 July, and placed upon the sumach, the thriftiest one of the larva 

 finished feeding and buried itself the 8th of September, but it was 

 not till tiie 25th of the following July that the moth made its 

 appearance. The pupa lies naked in tlie earth, without forming 

 any cocoon. It is about two inclu'S long and three-fourths of an 

 inch in diameter, with rather deep transverse furrows at the sutures 

 and wliolly destitute of any rows of minute teeth. It has a small 

 round elevation at its tij), like the head of a nail, and from the 

 centre of tliis elevation two small blunt points })roject. It is of a 

 bluish bhick color and tlie inside of tlie sliell after the moth has 

 left it is of a pale blue color and nacre-like, resembling tlie mother 

 of pearl on the inner surface of a clara shell. When this moth 



