Feb. 3, 1893.] Ot> [Packard. 



llie Life History of Certain Moths of the Family Cochliopodidiv, with Notes 

 on their Spines and Tubercles. 



By A. S. Packard, Providence, R. I. 



(Read before the American Philosophical Society, February 3, 1S93.) 



I am under special obligations to Miss Emily L. Morton for the eggs of 

 several species of this family, which gave me the opportunity of rearing 

 them and thus of observing the freshly hatched larvse of species of three 

 genera of this most interesting group, none having heretofore been de- 

 scribed, unless we except a very brief notice in Buckler's Larva, of the 

 BritisJi butterpies and Moths (iii, 76) of the frcbhly hatched larva oi Ileter- 

 ogenea asella, as follows: "As well as my strongest lens would show 

 them to me, these very small specks of creatures were of an ovate, round- 

 ish figure, dark brown above and pale greenish beneath — in short, minia- 

 ture representations, apparently, in all respects of the mature larva." 



I was very eager to learn whether the freshly hatched larva of any of 

 this group was born in the form of the fully grown larva, and entirely 

 without abdominal legs, or whether its body might not be more general- 

 ized in shape and structure and with the vestiges at least of such legs. 

 The result appears to be that, the young larvse are, so far as known, 

 without traces of abdominal legs, and that while those of the more 

 specialized though primitive genera, as Adoneta and Empretia, are born 

 with the tubercles already nearly as much specialized as in the full-grown 

 larva, in the more modified genus Lithacodes (L. fasciola), the body is 

 much more cylindrical and simpler, and thus more modified than in the 

 foregoing genera, being wiihout tubercles, but with forked glandular setae. 



Another result of great interest is that the shape of the young larva of 

 Adoneta and also ot Empretia, with their large tubercles bearing three 

 radiating setae or bristles, is such as to remind us of the larvae of the 

 Saturniida;, and to suggest one of two alternatives, viz., (1) either tlie Coch- 

 liopodidse have originated from the Saturniid« or forms allied to them ; or 

 (2) both the Saturniidse and Cochliopodidae have descended from a common 

 stem-form, and this perhaps some Notodontian. 



At all events the systematic position (and in this connection I may say 

 that the pupal and imaginal characters bear me oui) of the group repre- 

 sented by Limacodes and its allies is very near the Saturniidne, and noi far 

 from the Notodontians. It would seem as if the oldest, most generalized, 

 or less modified forms, viz., the original ancestors, were the tuberculated 

 larvse of Euclea, Adoneta and Empretia, as they are more like the larvae 

 ot other Bombyces, particularly the Satui'niidje and Notodontians. On 

 the other hand the nearly smooth slug- worms, without hairs or tubercles 

 when fully grown (such as Limacodes and Heterogenea), seem to be the 

 most aberrant and modified, viz., have become the most adapted to the 

 peculiar mode of larval life emphasized by the term "slug-worm ; " these 



