LEPIDOPTERA. SIT^ 



including this insect, instead of Cossns, which it formerly bore, 

 because the latter, being the name of a species, ought not to 

 have been applied to a genus. The European carpenter-moth, 

 called Bombjjx Cossus * by Linnaeus, will now be the Xyleutes 

 Cossus; and our indigenous species will be the Xyleutes 

 RobinicB, or locust-tree carpenter-moth. The moths of this 

 o-enus have thick and robust bodies, broad and thickly veined 

 wings, two very distinct feelers, and antenna^, which are fur- 

 nished on the under side, in both sexes, with a double set of 

 short teeth, rather longer in the male than in the female. 

 Their tongue is invisible. They give out a strong and pecu- 

 liar smell, whence they are sometimes called goat-moths by 

 English writers. 



Some caterpillars, which eat the leaves of plants, live in 

 cases or long oval cocoons, open at both ends, and large 

 enough for the insects to turn around within them, so as to go 

 out of either end. They do not entirely leave these cases, 

 even when moving from place to place, but cling to them on 

 the inside with the legs of the hinder part of their bodies, while 

 their heads and fore legs are thrust out. Thus in moving they 

 creep with their six fore legs only, and drag along their cases 

 after them as they go. These cases are made of silk within, 

 and are covered on the outside wdth leaves, bits of straw, or 

 little sticks. The caterpillars are nearly cylindrical, generally 

 soft and whitish, except the head and upper part of the first 

 three rings, which are brown and hard ; they have sixteen legs; 

 the first three pairs are long, strong, and armed with stout 

 claws ; the others are very short, consisting merely of slight 

 wart-like elevations provided with numerous minute clinging 

 hooks. When they are about to change their forms their 

 cases serve them instead of cocoons; they fasten them by 

 silken threads to the plant on which they five, stop up the 

 holes in them, and then throw off" their caterpillar-skins. The 

 chrysalids are remarkably blunt at the hinder extremity, and 

 are provided with transverse rows of minute teeth on the back 

 of the abdominal rings. The moths, of which there are several 



* Subsequently named Cossus ligniperda by Fabricius. 



