ORGYiA leucostigma: its natural history. 75 



the BomhycidcB, it rarely, if ever, happens that she is not prepared to 

 deposit her burden of fertilized eggs on the following day ; and as if 

 aware that her size and exposed position was an invitation to her many 

 enemies, she enters upon the duty without delay. A connected thread 

 oi eggs is extruded from her body and attached in mass to the surface 

 of the cocoon. As they emerge from the abdomen, they are accompa- 

 nied with a viscid secretion which cements them firmly together ; and 

 when the entire number — two hundred or more — are deposited, they 

 are thickly covered over by the same frothy substance, which soon 

 hardening, serves as an admirable protection from unfavorable weather, 

 from other insects, many birds and other depredators. This accom- 

 plished, the shrunken body soon drops from the cocoon to the ground, 

 and the life-cycle of the individual is completed. 



' A second brood. — In the Southern States there are two annual. broods 

 of the insect, of which the moths of the first appear in May and June, 

 and those of the second in September and October. Even so far north 

 as Philadelphia, I have observed on the 8th of September (after a long 

 term of unusually hot weather), an abundant second brood, at which 

 time the mature larvae abounded upon the tree-trunks, together with 

 cocoons recently spun and in construction, females just emerged, and 

 egg-deposits upon the cocoons. 



In New York, a second brood occurs occasionally, at least ; 

 and perhaps annually in limited numbers, yet it is never so 

 abundant as to be injuriously noticeable. I have seen the moth 

 as late as October 6th. 



Hibernation. — The hibernation of this species is in the 

 egg stage — the exception with the lepidoptera, where it is 

 commonly in the pupal stage, often in the form of larvae, and 

 occasionally as perfect insects. The greatest cold of our 

 northern winters — from 30° to 40° below zero, of Fahr. — has 

 failed to kill them. How it is possible for them to survive such 

 temperatures is a mystery to us. It is not from the protec- 

 tion afforded them by the material in which they are encased, for 

 Fio. in.- the eggs of another Bombycid— //emtVez^m il/aia— survive the 

 fiEMl'^uw winter equally well, although they are entirely without any cover 

 ing and are exposed in belt-like manner upon the twigs of oaks, 



attempted to enter through the small crevice left by the imperfectly fitting door at the 

 rear of the cage. Three or four moths were often on the gauze at the same time, whence 

 they could be plucked with the thumb and finger. During the hour that this exhibition 

 continued, forty moths were taken and pinned, from at least a hundred that entered the 

 room. Twenty-sixth Report on the New York State Museum of JS^aturai Hidory, 1874, 

 p. 148; id., Entomological Contributions, No. Ill, p. 148. 



