262 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



for their beauty, and naturally conduct to another family, par- 

 ticularly obnoxious to the cultivators of the soil, it may be 

 interesting to point out their distinguishing traits. 



The Lithosians are slender-bodied moths, mostly of small 

 size, whose rather narrow upper or fore wings, when at rest, 

 generally lie flatly on the top of the back, crossing or over- 

 lapping each other on their inner margins, and entirely cover- 

 ing the under wings, which are folded longitudinally, and, as 

 it were, moulded around the body ; more rarely the wings 

 slope a little at the sides, and cover the back like a low roof. 

 The antennee are rather long, and bristle-formed ; sometimes 

 naked in both sexes, more often slightly feathered with a 

 double row of short hairs beneath, in the males. The tongue 

 and one pair of feelers are very distinct and of moderate 

 length. The back is smooth, neither woolly nor crested, but 

 thickly covered with short and close feather-like scales. The 

 wings of many of the Lithosians are prettily spotted, and they 

 frequently fly in the daytime like the Glaucopidians. Their 

 caterpillars are sparingly clothed with hairs, growing in little 

 clusters from minute warts on the surface of the body. They 

 enclose themselves in thin oblong cocoons of silk interwoven 

 with their own hairs. The rings of their chrysalids are gener- 

 ally so closely joined as not to admit of motion. Of about a 

 dozen kinds inhabiting Massachusetts, I shall describe only 

 two. The first of these may be called Gnophria vittata, the 

 striped Gnophria. It is of a deep scarlet color ; its fore wings, 

 which expand one inch and one eighth, have two broad stripes, 

 and a short stripe between them at the tip, of a lead-color, and 

 the hind wings have a very broad lead-colored border behind ; 

 the middle of the abdomen and the joints of the legs are also 

 lead-colored. The caterpillar lives upon lichens, and may be 

 found under loose stones in the fields in the Spring. It is 

 dusky, and thinly covered with stiff, sharp, and barbed black 

 bristles, which grow singly from small warts. Early in May 

 it makes its cocoon, which is very thin and silky; and twenty 

 days afterwards is transformed to a moth. 



By far the most elegant species is the De'iopeia hella, the 

 beautiful Deiopeia. This moth has naked bristle-formed an- 



