LEPIDOPTERA. 285 



crescent near the hind angle. They expand about one inch 

 and one eighth. The female is gray, and wingless, or with 

 only two minute scales on each side in the place of wings, 

 and exactly resembles in shape the female of the foregoing 

 species. The caterpillar is yellow on the back, on which are 

 four short square brush-like yellow tufts; the sides are dusky 

 and spotted with red; there are two long black pencils or 

 plumes on the first ring, one on each side of the fifth ring, and 

 one on the top of the eleventh ring; the head is black; and 

 the retractile warts on the top of the ninth and tenth rings are 

 red. These caterpillars live on various trees and shrubs, and 

 are stated, by Miss Dix, in Professor Silliman's "Journal of 

 Science,"* to have been "very destructive to the thorn hedges 

 in Rhode Island," " appearing very early in summer, and not 

 disappearing till late in November." The cocoons resemble 

 those of the white-marked vaporer [Org-ijia leucostig-fna), 

 and the females, after they have come forth, never leave the 

 outside of their cocoons, but lay their eggs upon them and 

 die there. 



The next group may be called Lasiocampians (Lasiocam- 

 pad.e), after the principal genus f included in it, the name of 

 which signifies hairy caterpillar. The Lasiocampians are 

 woolly, and very thick-bodied moths, distinguished by the 

 want of the bristles and hooks that hold together the fore and 

 hind wings of other moths, by the wide and turned-up fore 

 edge of the hind wings, which projects beyond that of the fore 

 wings when at rest, and by their caterpillars, which (with few 

 exceptions) are not warty on the back, and are sparingly 

 clothed with short, soft hairs, mostly placed along the sides of 

 the body, and seldom distinctly arranged in spreading clusters 

 or tufts. These moths fly only by night, and both sexes are 

 winged. Their antennae generally bend downwards near the 

 middle, and upwards at the points, are longer than those of 



* Vol. XIX., p. 62. 



fTo Lasiocampa belong the European moths called Rubi, Trifolii, Qiiercus, 

 Eoboris, Dumeti, &c. I have not seen any insects like these in Massachusetts, 

 and believe that such are seldom if ever to be found in the United States. 



