LEPIDOPTERA. 261 



sides, and covering the abdomen like a low or flattened roof. 

 The females, even of those kinds that are provided with wings, 

 are very sluggish and heavy in their motions, and seldom go far 

 from their cocoons ; the males frequently fly by day in search of 

 their mates. The caterpillars of most of the Liparians are half 

 naked, their thin hairs growing chiefly on the sides of their 

 bodies; the warts which furnish them being only six or eight* in 

 number on each ring ; and they have two little soft and reddish 

 warts (one on the top of the ninth, and the other on the tenth 

 ring), which can be drawn in and out at pleasure. Some of them 

 have four or five short and thick tufts, cut off square at the ends, 

 on the top of the back, two long and slender pencils of hairs ex- 

 tending forwards, like antennae, from the first ring, sometimes two 

 more pencils on the fifth ring, and a single pencil on the top of the 

 eleventh ring. The warts which produce these pencils are more 

 prominent or longer than the rest. These caterpillars are called 

 tussocks in England, from the tufts on their backs. They live 

 upon trees and shrubs, and, when at rest, they bend down the 

 head, and bring over it the long plume-like pencils of the first 

 ring. Their cocoons are large, thin, and flattened, and consist of 

 a soft kind of silk, intermixed with which are a few hairs. The 

 chrysalids are covered with down or short hairs, and end at the 

 tail with a long projecting point. In Europe there are many 

 kinds of Liparians, some of them at times exceedingly injurious 

 to vegetation, their caterpillars devouring the leaves of fruit-trees, 

 and not unfrequently extending their devastations to the hedges, 

 and even to the corn and grass f. There do not appear to be 

 many kinds in the United States, and they never swarm to the 

 same extent as in Europe. 



During the months of July and August, there may be found on 

 apple-trees and rose-bushes, and sometimes on other trees and 



* The Arctians have ten or more warts on each ring. 



t These destructive kinds are the caterpillars of the brown-tailed moth (Par- 

 thesia auriflua), of the golden-tailed moth {Pnrthesia chrysorrhcca) , of the gipsey- 

 moth (Hypngymna dlspar), and of the black arches-moth (Psilura monacha). The 

 first of these abounded to such an extent in England, in the year 1782, that prayers 

 were ordered to be read in all the churches, to avert the destruction which was an- 

 ticipated from them. 



