LEPIDOPTERA. 301 



allow of the escape of the moth. I do not know at what time the 

 moths come out in Massachusetts ; they have been taken in July, 

 in Virginia. Both sexes leave their cocoons when arrived at 

 maturity, and both are provided with wings. Their feelers are 

 of moderate size, cylindrical, blunt pointed, and thickly covered 

 with scales. The tongue is not visible. Their antenna; are 

 curved, and are recurved or bent upwards at the point ; the stalk 

 is feathered, in a double row, on the under-side, very widely, in 

 the males, for more than half its length, and beyond the middle 

 the feathery fringe is suddenly narrowed, and tapers thence to the 

 tip ; in the females the antennae are also doubly feathered, but the 

 fringe is narrower throughout than in the other sex. The body 

 and the wings almost exactly resemble those of the foreign silk- 

 worm moth in shape ; but the fore-wings are rather more pointed 

 and hooked at the tip. There are no bristles and hooks to hold 

 together the wings, which, when at rest, cover the sides like a slop- 

 ing roof, and the front edge of the hind-wings does not project 

 beyond that of the fore-wings. These moths are of a reddish 

 gray color, finely sprinkled all over with minute black dots ; the 

 posterior margin of the hind-wings above, and the under-side of 

 the fore-wings, especially behind the tip, are tinged with tawny 

 red ; there is a small black dot near the middle of the fore-wings ; 

 and both the fore and hind wings are crossed by a narrow black- 

 ish band, beginning with an angle on the front edge of the former, 

 and passing obliquely backwards to the inner edge of the hind- 

 wings. They expand from one inch and three eighths to two 

 inches, or a little more. 



The last family of the Bombyces, remaining to be noticed, may 

 be called Notodontians (Notodontad;e). Many of the cater- 

 pillars belonging to it have hunched backs, or tooth-like promi- 

 nences on the back ; and hence the origin of the name of this fam- 

 ily, which comes from a word signifying toothed-back. Most of 

 these caterpillars are entirely naked ; some of them are downy 

 or slightly hairy, but the hairs generally grow immediately from 

 the skin, and not in spreading clusters from little warts on the 

 rings. They have sixteen legs ; some raise the last pair when at 

 rest, and some keep these always elevated and do not use them in 

 creeping, in which case these terminal legs are lengthened, and 



