LEPIDOPTERA. 283 



lowing circumstances seem particularlj to recommend these indi- 

 genous silk-worms to the attention of persons interested in the 

 silk culture. Our native oak and nut trees afford an abundance 

 of food for the caterpillars ; their cocoons are much heavier than 

 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 sufficient number of cocoons 

 may be found, under the oak and nut trees, with which to begin a 

 course of experiments inbreeding the insects, and in the manufac- 

 ture of their silk. 



. Two more moths, belonging to the family under consideration, 

 are found in Massachusetts. They may be referred to the genus 

 Saturnia*, and are distinguished from the foregoing by their an- 

 tennas, which are widely feathered only in the males, the feather- 

 ing being very narrow in the other sex ; their caterpillars, more- 

 over, are furnished with 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 ap- 

 pear 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 bpdy, 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, on which 

 there .are only five, and on the first four rings, on each of which 

 there is an additional cluster low down on each side ; the feet are 

 brown, and there is a triangular brown spot on the under-side of 



* The sirname of Juno, the daughter of Saturn. 



