LEPIDOrXERA. ^03 



plicnius, which arc easily reared, and make their cocoons quite 

 as well in the house as in the open air. The following circum- 

 stances seem particularly to recommend these indigenous silk- 

 worms to the attention of persons interested in the silk culture. 

 Our native oak and nut trees allord an abundance of food for 

 the caterpillars; their cocoons are much heavier tiian those of 

 the silk-worm, and will yield a greater quantity of silk; and, 

 as the insects remain unchanged in the chrysalis state from 

 September to June, the cocoons may be kept for unwinding at 

 any leisure time during the winter. By a careful search, after 

 the falling of the leaves in the autumn, a suilicient number of 

 cocoons may be found, under the oak and nut trees, with 

 which to begin a course of experiments in breeding the insects, 

 and in the manufacture of their silk. 



Two more moths, belonging to the family under considera- 

 tion, are found in Massachusetts. They may be referred to 

 the genus Satiirnio* and are distinguished from the foregoing 

 by their antennae, which are widely feathered only in the males, 

 the feathering being very narrow in the other sex; their cater- 

 pillars, moreover, are furnished v\^ith small warts crowned with 

 long prickles or branching spines. None of the caterpillars 

 described in the preceding pages are venomous; all of them 

 may be handled with impunity. This is not the case with 

 the two following kinds, the prickles of which sting severely. 

 The first of these begin to appear by the middle of June, and 

 other broods continue to be hatched till the middle of July. 

 These caterpillars live on the balsam poplar and the elm, and, 

 according to Mr. Abbot, on the dogwood or cornel, and the 

 sassafras; they feed well also on the leaves of clover and 

 Indian corn. They are of a pea-green color, with a broad 

 brown stripe edged below with white on each side of the body, 

 beginning on the fourth ring and ending at the tail; they are 

 covered with spreading clusters of green prickles, tipped with 

 black, and of a uniform length ; each of these clusters consists 

 of about thirty prickles branching from a common centre, and 

 there are six clusters on each of the rings except the last two, 



* The surname of Juno, the daughter of Saturn. 



