THE WHITE S MOTH. 275 



suture upon its front is tawny yellowish. The legs are black and the prolegs 

 pale brown with a white ring on their middle. 



Several of these caterpillars commonly live together upon a 

 particular limb, which they strip of its leaves, eating all the 

 leaf except its midvein and portions of the other coarse veins. 

 They construct a kind of nest by drawing two or more leaves 

 together, with the silken threads which they spin from their 

 mouths, forming a hollow ball-like cavity within, in which they 

 repose when not engaged in feeding. Three of these caterpillars 

 which I transferred with their nest to a breeding cage on the 

 14th of July all spun their cocoons within the nest a day or two 

 afterwards. The cocoons were formed of yellowish gray silk 

 loosely woven and attached to the under side of a leaf. The 

 moths all came out on the 25th of July, thus remaining in their 

 pupa state but a little over a week. The moth crawls from its 

 cocoon, and with its fore feet clinging to a twig, hangs perpen- 

 dicularly downwards, swinging with the breeze, until its wings 

 become dry and stiff. It then discharges one or more drops of 

 an opake brick red fluid, and takes to flight. One of these 

 moths dropped a number of eggs, which were of a hemispheric 

 form and dark brown with a wide glaucous gray ring on the 

 outer margin. 



The moths (plate 2, fig. 4) measure an inch and a half across their wings when 

 spread. They are greyish brown, of a pale umber hue, with a large oval velvet 

 black spot, reaching from the front between the bases of the antennas to the middle 

 of the thorax. The fore wings are slightly sprinkled with black atoms, and are 

 crossed by four nearly equi-distant pale lines, forming slender bands, each of which 

 is faintly margined on its hind side by a darker line. The two anterior bands are 

 nearly straight and parallel, crossing the wing transversely. The third is less dis- 

 tinct than the others and can scarcely be discerned in some individuals. It begins 

 on the inner margin in contact with the fourth band, and inclining towards the sec- 

 ond, with a gentle curve becomes parallel with it through most of its length. It 

 commonly ends before reaching the outer margin and is interrupted in its middle, 

 and is sometimes dislocated at this interruption, as represented in the figure, its 

 outer part being moved backwards from the line of its course. This baud is mar- 

 gined posteriorly by a broad band which is but slightly darker than the groundcolor 

 of the wing and of an olive green tint. It is broader on its inner end, where it is 

 cut across by the fourth band. This last is nearly parallel with the hind margin, 

 and is straight the first half of its length, when it curves slightly forward and then 

 gradually turns directly backward, running parallel with the outer margin a short 

 distance, and changing to a vivid snow-white color; with a curve it again turns out- 

 ward and forward, and finally with an abrupt turn it runs straight and obliquely 

 backward to the outer margin. Its white outer end thus nearly forms a letter S, 

 which is the most conspicuous mark upon the wing. Immediate ^ back of this on 



