210 VAPORER MOTH CATERPILLAR. 



leaf on which it was standing, he was for several moments ab- 

 sorbed in contemplating its bright colors and the artistic arrange- 

 ment of its elegant plumes. Then, as he was laying it down he 

 said to himself, " That is the prettiest thing I ever saw ! " Let 

 us not murmer, if the leaves of our rose-bushes are somewhat 

 gnawed and eroded, when they hereby produce for our admira- 

 tion objects far more beautiful than we look for them to yield. 



These caterpillars are an inch or more in length, slender, sixteen footed, and 

 have the skin of a cream yellow color with a black stripe along the middle of 

 the back and a broader brown or black one upon each side. The body is thinly 

 clothed with pale yellow hairs which radiate from small wart-like elevations, 

 and in a row on the fore part of the back are four brush-like tufts of a deeper 

 yeilow color. On the hind part of the back are two little knobs or bosses of a 

 bright coral red color, or like sealing wax, and the head is of the same color. 

 Projecting upward from the hind end of the back like a camel's hair pencil is 

 a bundle of long black hairs, and inclining forward and outward from each side 

 of the neck is a similar pencil. The hairs of these pencils are minutely bearded 

 through their whole length, and each hair has a small knob at its end, which 

 is formed of a tuft of minute bristles. The pencils have a jointed appearance, 

 from their hairs being in sets of different lengths. The yellow hairs are also 

 bearded, but have no knobs at their ends. 



I have, on willows and on basswood met with caterpillars differing from the 

 preceding in having the head yellow, no red knobs upon the back, a black 

 spot behind each of the brush-like tufts except the first, and beyond these a 

 deep yellow instead of a black stripe, and no brown stripe along the sides. 

 Whether these are a distinct species, or only a variety, I am unable to say, two 

 individuals which I reared having proved to be wingless females. 



These caterpillars do not associate together in companies, nor 

 form any web for their protection, but live solitary, exposing them- 

 selves openly upon the leaves and in the glare of sunlight, as if they 

 thought that no creature would have a heart to injure anything 

 so pretty as they are. They eat irregular notches in the margins 

 of leaves, and where they are very numerous they consume the 

 whole of the leaf, leaving nothing but the mid-vein. They feed 

 upon many different kinds of trees, the elm, the maple, the horse 

 chestnut, the oak, &c, but they appear to be most fond of the 

 apple, the plum, the rose, and other perennials belonging to the 

 Family Rosacea. They attain their growth and spin their co- 

 coons mostly during the latter half of the month of July. The 

 cocoons are attached to the twigs and limbs of trees, and some- 

 times to the leaves, and also to the posts and rails of fences, it 

 probably being some of those caterpillars which are to produce 

 male moths which select the latter situations. The cocoons are 



