LEPIDOPTERA. 313 



female are purplish red, blended with ochre-yellow, are almost 

 transparent in the middle, and have the same white spots and 

 faint bands as tiiose of the male. It expands from one inch 

 and three quarters to two inches and a quarter, or more, in 

 some females. The distinguishing name, given by Sir J. E. 

 Smith* to this moth, is pellucida, and we may call it the pel- 

 lucid or clear-wing Dryocampa. I have only once seen the 

 caterpillar, which was found on an oak on the twenty-fifth of 

 September. It was about the size of that of the senatorial Dry- 

 ocampa, and resembled it in every thing but color. Its head 

 was rust-yellow, its body pea-green, shaded on the back and 

 sides with red, longitudinally striped with very pale yellowish 

 green, and armed with black thorns. 



The last of these insects is the rubicwida of Fabricius, or 

 rosy Dryocampa. This delicate and very rare moth is found 

 in Massachusetts in July. Its fore wings are rose-colored, 

 crossed by a broad pale yellow band ; the hind wings are pale 

 yellow, with a short rosy band behind the middle ; the body is 

 yellow ; the belly and legs are rose-colored. It expands rather 

 more than one inch and three quarters. The caterpillar is 

 unknown to me. 



All the Moth caterpillars thus far described in this work, live 

 more or less exposed to view, and devour the leaves of plants; 

 but there are others that are concealed from observation in 

 stems and roots, which they pierce in various directions, and 

 devour only the wood and pith ; their habits, in this respect, 

 being exactly like those of the ^Egerians among the Sphinges. 

 These insects belong to a family of Bombyces, by some natu- 

 ralists called Zeuzerad.e, and by others Hepialid^e, both 

 names derived from insects included in the same group. The 

 caterpillars of the Zeuzerians are white or reddish white, soft 

 and naked, or slightly downy, with brown horny heads, a spot 

 on the top of the fore part of the body which is also brown and 

 hard, and sixteen legs. They make imperfect cocoons, some- 

 times of silk, and sometimes of morsels of wood or grains of 

 earth fastened together by gummy silk. Their chrysalids, like 



* Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 115, pi. 58. 



40 



