240 YELLOW NECK-WORM ITS NAME AND RELATIVES. 



the oral orifice and the eye. They are clothed with short hair-like scales, their 

 tips heingvery slightly exposed. The basal joint is obconic, compressed, and 

 curved; the second or middle joint is scarcely as long as the basal and about 

 twice as long as wide, cylindric and compressed; the apical joint is minute, 

 egg-shaped, and but half the diameter of the preceding joints. The antennae 

 in the males have two rows of short hairs along their inner sides, in the females 

 they are entirely naked and scarcely a third the length of the wings. 

 The following varieties occur in this species. 



a. The third band on the fore wings wanting. 



b. A fifth band slightly forward of the hind one, and parallel with it. Common • 



c. A brown dot and behind it an oval transverse spot or short line between the 



the first and second bands. Common. 



d. The second and third bands straight and not curved forward towards their 



outer ends. 



e. The whole space between the first and second bands darker than the rest 



of the wing. 

 /. The fore wings dark auburn brown, sprinkled with black atoms and the 

 bands black. 



This insect was first described and figured in the year 1773, 

 from specimens gathered in New- York by Mr. Drury. He named 

 it Phalcena minislra, the Latjn word ministra meaning a maid-ser- 

 vant or handmaid. This name was perhaps suggested from the 

 plain, modest appearance of this moth, without any diversity of 

 colors or gay ornamental marks such as deck the insects of this 

 order generally. The Handmaid thus becomes the most appro- 

 priate common name for this moth, whilst its larva will most 

 readily be distinguished by the name Yellow-necked apple-tree 

 worm. It belongs to the Order Lepidoptera, and it can be refer- 

 red to no Family of this order except that of Notodontid^e. The 

 essential mark by which this and the closely allied Family Arc- 

 tiidse are distinguished, is, that they possess a minute rudiment- 

 ary tongue (maxillae) — the larvae of the latter family being ge- 

 nerally thickly covered with hairs whilst those of the Notodon- 

 tidse are nearly or quite naked. The insects of these two groups 

 are thus intermediate between the Bombycidee in which the 

 tongue is wholly wanting and the other families of this order 

 which have it long and spirally coiled. In none of the genera 

 of the Family Notodontidse however is the tongue so long as to 

 be coiled, as we find it in the handmaid moth, save one, the ge- 

 nus Lophopteryx. In this genus also, the larva when alarmed 

 throws the ends of its body upwards, in the same manner that 

 our insect does. And in many of its other characters it coincides 



