274 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



moth by Sir James Edward Smith, is expressive of its peculiar 

 shade of yellow. 



We have a much smaller tiger-moth, with naked antennae 

 like those of the Isabella. Its wings are so thinly covered 

 with scales as to be almost transparent. It has not yet been 

 described, and it may be called the ruddle tiger-moth, Arctia 

 rubricosa. Its fore wings are reddish brown, with a small 

 black spot near the middle of each ; its hind wings are dusky, 

 becoming blacker behind (more rarely red, with a broad black- 

 ish border behind), with two black dots near the middle, the 

 inner margin next to the body, and the fringe, of a red color; 

 the thorax is reddish brown ; and the abdomen is cinnabar-red, 

 with a row of black dots on the top, and another row on each 

 side. It expands about one inch and one quarter. This moth 

 is rare ; and it appears here in July and August. It closely 

 resembles the ruby tiger-moth, Arctia fuliginosa, of Europe, 

 the wings of which are not so transparent, and have two black 

 dots on each of them, with a distinct row of larger black spots 

 around the outer margin of the hind pair. The caterpillar of 

 our moth is unknown to me; it will probably be found to 

 resemble that of the ruby tiger, which is blackish, and thickly 

 covered with reddish brown or reddish gray hairs. It eats the 

 leaves of plantain, dock, and of various other herbaceous 

 plants, grows to the length of one inch and three eighths, 

 passes the winter concealed beneath stones, or in the crevices 

 of walls, and makes its cocoon in the spring. 



The caterpillars of all the foregoing Arctians live almost 

 entirely upon herbaceous plants; those which follow (with one 

 exception only), devour the leaves of trees. Of the latter, the 

 most common and destructive are the little caterpillars known 

 by the name of fall web-worms, whose large webs, sometimes 

 iCxtending over entire branches with their leaves, may be seen 

 on our native elms, and also on apple and other fruit trees, in 

 the latter part of summer. The eggs, from which these cater- 

 pillars proceed, are laid by the parent moth in a cluster upon a 

 leaf near the extremity of a branch;. they are hatched from 

 the last of June till the middle of August, some broods being 

 early and others late, and the young caterpillars immediately 



