LEPIDOPTERA. 273 



the stubble has long been proved ; and this practice is getting 

 into favor here. 



During the autumn, there may be seen in our gardens and 

 fields, and even by the way-side, a kind of caterpillar whose 

 peculiar appearance must frequently have excited attention. 

 It is very thickly clothed with hairs, which are stift', short, and 

 perfectly even at the ends, like the bristles of a brush, as if they 

 had all been shorn off with shears to the same length. The 

 hairs on the first four and last two rings are black; and those 

 on the six intermediate rings of the body are tan-red. The 

 head and body of the caterpillar are also black. When one of 

 these insects is taken up, it immediately rolls itself into a ball, 

 like a hedge-hog, and, owing to its form, and to the elasticity 

 of the diverging hairs with which it is covered, it readily slides 

 from the fingers and hand of its captor. It eats the leaves of 

 clover, dandelion, narrow-leaved plantain, and of various other 

 herbaceous plants, and, on the approach of winter, creeps under 

 stones, rails, or boards on the ground, where it remains in a 

 half torpid state till spring. In April or May it makes an oval 

 blackish cocoon, composed chiefly of the hairs of its body, and 

 comes forth in the moth state in June or July. My specimens 

 remained in the chrysalis form five weeks; but Mr. Abbot* 

 states that a caterpillar of this kind, which made its cocoon in 

 Georgia on the twenty-fourth of June, was transformed to a 

 moth on the fifth of July, having remained only eleven days 

 in the chrysalis state. The moth is the Arctia Isabella^ or 

 Isabella tiger-moth, and it differs essentially from those which 

 have been described, in the antennse, which are not feathered, 

 but are merely covered on the under side with a few fine and 

 short hairs, and even these are found only in the males. Its 

 color is a dull grayish tawny yellow; there are a few black 

 dots on the wings, and the hinder pair are frequently tinged 

 with orange-red; on the top of the back is a row of about six 

 black dots, and on each side of the body a similar row of dots. 

 The wings expand from two inches to two inches and three 

 eighths. The specific name, which was first given to this 



• Insects of Georgia, p. 131, pi. 66. 



35 



