LEPIDOrXERA. 239 



minutely dotted with white, with a row of eight dark brick-red 

 spots on the top of the back. The head is black and rough 

 with projecting points; the spines, of which there are six or 

 seven on each segment, except the first, are black, stifl', and 

 branched, and the intermediate legs are reddish. When fully 

 grown they measure an inch and three quarters in length, and 

 appear very formidable with their thorny armature, which is 

 doubtless intended to defend them from their enemies. It was 

 formerly supposed that they were venomous, and capable of 

 inflicting dangerous wounds; and within my remembrance 

 many persons were so much alarmed on this account as to cut 

 down all the poplar trees around their dwellings. This alarm 

 was unfounded ; for, although there are some caterpillars that 

 have the power of inflicting venomous wounds with their 

 spines and hairs, this is not the case with those of the Antiopa 

 butterfly. The only injury which can be laid to their charge, 

 is that of despoiling of their foliage some of our most orna- 

 mental trees, and this is enough to induce us to take all proper 

 measures for exterminating the insects, short of destroying the 

 trees that they infest. I have sometimes seen them in such 

 profusion on the willow and elm, that the limbs bent under 

 their weight; and the long leafless branches, which they had 

 stripped and deserted, gave sufficient proof of the voracity of 

 these caterpillars. The chrysalis is of a dark brown color, 

 with large tawny spots around the pointed tubercles on the 

 back. The butterflies come forth in eleven or twelve days 

 after the insects have entered upon the chrysalis state, and 

 this occurs in the beginning of July. A second brood of 

 caterpillars is produced in August, and they pass through all 

 their changes before winter. 



Vanessa Literrogationis. F. Semicolon butterfly. 

 Wings on the upper side tawny orange, with brown spots 

 running together on the hinder part, and with black spots in 

 the middle ; hind wings in the male most often black above, 

 except at the base, and sometimes of this color in the other 

 sex also ; the edges and the tails glossed with reddish white ; 

 under side of the wings in some rust-red, in others marbled 



