384 



The Moths and Butterflies 



and spins a tough oval cocoon fastened securely to the side of a twig. 

 The moth issues in the summer of the following year. The cocoon of M. 

 opercidaris so closely resembles a terminal bud of the Southern live-oak on 

 which the caterpillars mostly feed that it is almost impossible to detect it, 

 especially as both twigs and cocoons are covered with small bits of lichen. 



Another small family, with thirty-three species, of interest because of 

 the odd character of the larva', is that of the slug-caterpillar moths, the 

 Eucleida; (or Cochlidiida-). The moths themselves are small and stout, 

 mostly rather strikingly colored, with brown, apple-green, and cinnamon 

 prevailing. The larvic are slug-like, short, thick, nearly oblong and mostly 

 spiny and gaudily colored. The spiny oak-slug, formidably armed with 

 branching .spines and common on oaks and willows in the east, is the larva 

 of Elided delpltinii, a small, robust, deei)-red(iish-bro\vn moth with bright 

 green spots on the wings. The saddle-back caterpillar, Sihine (Empretia) 

 stimiilea, has a striking squarish green blotch on the back, with an oval pur- 

 pli.sh spot in the middle. It has brandling sjiiny hairs, which atTect some 

 persons like nettles, producing severe inllammation. It feeds on many 

 plants, on oak and other forest trees in the east, and often on corn in the 

 west. The moth is lustrous seal- and chocolate-brown, with a few small 

 white dots on the wings. Another slug-catcr]jillar is the pale apjjle-green 

 larva, with donsal brown blotch, of Prolimacodes (Eulimacodes) scapha, 

 a stout wood-brown moth, expanding one inch, with a curved silvery line 

 on each fore wing, behind which the wing surface is paler than in front. 

 None of the species of this family has been found west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains except in Texas. Parasii chloris has the fore wings brown at base 

 and outer margin and elsewhere ap|)lc-grcen; the hind wings are clayey 

 yellow. Its larva is bright scarlet with four blue-bhuk lines along the back 

 and with stinging yellow tubercles. It feeds on cherry, apple, and rose. 

 Eudea pccmilata has chocolate-brown fore wings with an irregular bright 

 green elongate curving blotch, and the hind wings soft wood-brown. 



The most extraordinary species in this family of moths with strange 

 larvK is the hag-moth, Phobctron pithecium, who.se larva is one of the 

 oddest known. It is nearly square, dark brown, and bears eight singular 

 fleshy processes projecting from the sides. These processes, which arc half 

 as long as the larva itself, are covered with feathery brown hairs, among 

 which are longer black, stinging hairs. Thus covered, and twisting curi- 

 ously up and back, they resemble heavy locks of hair and give the name 

 hag-moth to the species. The moth is rarely seen; it is dusky purple- 

 brown with ocherous patches on the back and a light yellow tuft on each 

 middle leg; the fore wings are variegated with pale yellowi.sh brown, and 

 crossed by a narrow wavy curved band of the same color; the hind wings 

 are sable, bordered with yellowish in the female. 



