LEPIDOPTERA. 277 



wings and the body in repose. There are no bristles and hooks 

 to keep the fore and hind wings together. In the middle of each 

 wing there is generally a conspicuous spot of a different color 

 from the rest of the surface, often hke the eye-spot on peacocks' 

 feathers, sometimes with a transparent space like talc or isinglass 

 in the middle, and sometimes kidney-shaped and opake. These 

 moths commonly fly towards the close of the day, and in the 

 evening twilight. Their eggs are very numerous, amounting to 

 several hundreds from a single individual. 



Although the injuries committed by the caterpillars of the Sa- 

 turnians are, by no means, very grejit, the magnitude and beauty 

 of the moths render them very conspicuous and worthy of notice. 

 The largest kinds belong to that division of the Bombyces called 

 Attacus by Linnaeus. They are distinguished from the rest of the 

 Saturnians by having wide and flat antennae, like short oval 

 feathers, in both sexes, and by the fleshy warts on the backs of 

 their caterpillars, which are richly colored, and tipped with 

 minute bristles. Preeminent above all our moths, in queenly 

 beauty, is the Attacus Luna, or Luna moth, its specific name 

 being the same as that given by the Romans to the moon, poeti- 

 cally styled " fair empress of the night." The wings of this fine 

 insect are of a delicate light green color, and the hinder angle of 

 the posterior wings is prolonged, so as to form a tail to each, of 

 an inch and a half or more in length ; there is a broad purple- 

 brown stripe along the front edge of the fore-wings, extending 

 also across the thorax, and sending backwards a little branch to an 

 eye-like spot near the middle of the wing ; these eye-spots, of 

 which there is one on each of the wings, are transparent in the 

 centre, and are encircled by rings of white, red, yellow, and 

 black ; the hinder borders of the wings are more or less edged or 

 scalloped with purple-brown ; the body is covered with a white 

 kind of wool ; the antennae are ochre-yellow ; and the legs are 

 purple-brown. The wings expand from four inches and three 

 quarters to five inches and a half. The caterpillar of this moth 

 lives on the walnut and hickory, on which it may be found, fully 

 grown, towards the end of July and during the month of August. 

 It is of a pale and very clear bluish green color ; there is a yellow 

 stripe on each side of the body, and the back is crossed, between 



