LEPIDOPTERA. 287 



last of them, together with some foreign species, such as the Tau 

 moth of Europe, seem naturally to conduct to the next family, 

 which I call Ceratocampians (CERATOCAMPADiE), after the name 

 of the chief genus contained in it. This name, moreover, signi- 

 fying horned caterpillar, serves to point out the principal pecuH- 

 arity of the caterpillars in this group ; they being armed with 

 thorny points, of which those on the second ring, and sometimes 

 also those on the third, are long, curved, and resemble horns. 

 These caterpillars eat the leaves of forest-trees, and go into the 

 ground to undergo their transformations without making cocoons. 

 The rings of the chrysalis are surrounded by little notched ridges, 

 the teeth of which, together with the strong prickles at the hinder 

 end of the body, assist it in forcing its way upwards out of the 

 earth, just as the moth is about to burst the skin of the chrysalis. 

 The moths are very easily distinguished from all the foregoing by 

 their antennae, which are short, and, in the males, are feathered on 

 both sides for a little more than half the length of the stalk, and 

 are naked from thence to the tip ; while those of the females are 

 threadlike, and neither feathered nor toothed. The feelers (ex- 

 cept in Ceratocampa, in which they are very distinct,) and the 

 tongue are very small, and not ordinarily visible. There are no 

 bristles and hooks to fasten together the wings, which, when at 

 rest, are not spread, but are closed, the fore-wings covering the 

 hinder pair, and the front edge of the latter, in most cases, ex- 

 tends a little beyond that of the fore-Wings. These are some of 

 the principal characters on which I have ventured to establish 

 this family, which is now, for the first time, pointed out as a pe- 

 culiar group. I believe that it is exclusively American. 



One of the largest and most rare, and withal the most magnifi- 

 cent of our moths is the Ceratocampa regalis, or regal walnut- 

 moth. Its fore-wings are olive-colored, adorned with several 

 yellow spots, and veined with broad red lines ; the hind-wings are 



edges. The kidney-shaped spots on the fore-wings iiave a very slender central 

 yellow crescent, and those on the hind^wings touch the external black band. The 

 wings expand three inches. The other moth, figured on the same plate in Mr. 

 Audubon's work, which is probably the female of the foregoing, apparently differs 

 from it only in being of a deep Indian yellow color, and in having the crescent in 

 the middle of the kidney-shaped spots -very distinct, whereas in the male it is 

 almost obsolete. 



