MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



and demonstrated how harmless it was. This is difficult 

 to believe, but it was a third Regalis and came into my 

 possession at night again. My only consolation was that 

 it was feeding, and would not pupate until I could make 

 a picture. This one was six inches from tip to tip, the 

 largest caterpillar I ever saw; a beautiful blue-green 

 colour, with legs of tan marked with black, each segment 

 having four small sharp horns on top, and on the sides 

 an oblique dash of pale blue. The head bore ten horns. 

 Four of these were large, an inch in length, coloured tan 

 at the base, black at the tip. The foremost pair of this 

 formidable array turned front over the face, all the others 

 back, and the outside six of the ten were not quite the 

 length of the largest ones. 



The first caterpillar had measured five inches, and the 

 next one three, but it was transforming. Whether the 

 others were males and this a female, or whether it was 

 only that it had grown under favourable conditions, I 

 could not tell. It was differently marked on the sides, 

 and in every way larger, and brighter than the others, 

 and had not finished feeding. Knowing that it was called 

 the "horned hickory devil" at times, hickory and walnut 

 leaves were placed in its box, and it evinced a decided 

 preference for the hickory. As long as it ate, and seemed 

 a trifle larger it w^as fed. The day it walked over fresh 

 leaves and began the preliminary travel, it was placed on 

 some hickory sprouts around an old stump, and exposures 



350 



