378 



L E P I D P T ERA. 



Were it not for its regular shape, it might, Avlien at rest, 

 very easily be mistaken for a dry, brown, and crumpled 

 leaf. The feelers are somewhat prominent, like a short 

 beak ; the edges of the under wings are very much notched, 

 as are the hinder and inner edges of the fore wings, and 

 these notches are white ; its general color is a red-brown ; 

 behind the middle of each of the wings is a pale band, 

 edo-ed with ziszao; dark brown lines, and there are also two 

 or three short irregular brown lines runnino- backwards from 

 the front edge of the fore wings, besides a minute pale cres- 

 cent, edged with dark broAvn, near the middle of the same. 

 In the females the pale bands and dark lines are sometimes 

 wanting, the wings being almost entirely of a red-brown 

 color. It expands from one inch and a half to nearly two 

 inches. Mr. Abbot, who has figured it, states that the 

 caterpillar lives on the oak and the ash, that it spun itself 

 up in May among the leaves in a gray-brown cocoon, in 

 which the chrysalis was enveloped with a pale brown pow- 

 der, and that the moth came out in February. My speci- 

 mens, on the contrary, as above stated, were found on 

 apple-trees, made their cocoons in the autumn, and ap- 

 peared m the winged form in the early part of the following 

 summer. 



The foregoing is the only American lappet-moth, with 



notched wings, which 

 is known to me ; but 

 we have another much 

 larger one, with en- 

 tire wings. It is the 

 Velleda (Fig. 177) of 

 Stoll, so named after 

 a celebrated German 

 female, commemorated by the ancient historian Tacitus. 

 This moth has a very large, thick, and woolly body, and 

 is of a white color, variegated or clouded with blue-gray. 

 On the fore wings are two broad dark gray bands, inter- 



