332 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



side. The posture of these caterpillars, when at rest, is very 

 odd ; both extremities are raised, the body being bent, and 

 resting only on the four intermediate pairs of legs. If touched 

 or otherwise disturbed, they throw up their heads and tails 

 with a jerk, at the same time bending the body semicircularly 

 till the two extremities almost meet over the back. They all 

 eat together, and, after they have done, arrange themselves 

 side by side along the twigs and branches which they have 

 stripped. Beginning at the ends of the branches they eat all 

 the leaves successively from thence towards the trunk, and if 

 one branch does not afford food enough they betake them- 

 selves to another. When ready to transform, all the individuals 

 of the same brood quit the tree at once, descending by night, 

 and burrow into the ground to the depth of three or four inches, 

 and, within twenty-four hours afterwards, cast their cater- 

 pillar-skins, and become chrysalids without making cocoons. 

 They remain in the ground in this state all winter, and are 

 changed to moths and come out between the middle and end 

 of July. These moths belong to the genus Pyga;ra^ so named 

 because the caterpillar sits with its tail raised up. The an- 

 tennae are rather long, those of the males fringed beneath, in a 

 double row, with very short hairs nearly to the tips, which, 

 however, as well as the whole of the stalk of the antennae in 

 the other sex, are bare; the thorax is generally marked with a 

 large dark-colored spot, the hairs of which can be raised up so 

 as to form a ridge or kind of crest; the hinder margin of the 

 fore wings is slightly notched; and the fore legs are stretched 

 out before the body in repose. Our Pygccra was named, by 

 Drury, ministra, the attendant or servant. It is of a light 

 brown color; the head and a large square spot on the thorax 

 are dark chesnut-brown; on the fore wings are four or five 

 transverse lines, one or two spots near the middle, and a short 

 oblique line near the tip, all of which, with the outer hind 

 margin, are dark chesnut-brown. One and sometimes both of 

 the dark brown spots are wanting on the fore wings in the 

 males, and the females, which are larger than the other sex, 

 frequently have five instead of four transverse brown lines. 

 It expands from one inch and three quarters to two inches and 

 a half. 



