THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



No. VII. MAY, MDCCCXLI. 



Price 6d. 



Art. XV. — Remarku on some North American Lepidoptera. By 

 Edward Doueleday, Esq. Including a Communication from 

 T. W. Harris, Esq., M.D., of Boston, U.S. 



During my short stay at Charleston, S. C, in December, 1837, I 

 observed on the numerous trees of Cupressus Thyoicles, in the squares 

 and gardens of that city, a great many cocoons evidently belonging to 

 one of the Sacktriigers. These cocoons were fusiform, with an open- 

 ing at the bottom, and were suspended from the younger branches by 

 a short footstalk. They were composed of strong greyish silk, inter- 

 mixed with fragments of the branches and leaves of the tree. Within 

 them was a fattish, brown larva, with no prologs, but with the legs 

 much developed, especially the posterior pair. The head and three 

 thoracic segments were hard, corneous, of rather a deeper brown, with 

 a few short, longitudinal, pale lines down the back. I collected a 

 good many of them there, and afterwards found a few more in East Flo- 

 rida, chiefly on a large species of Ambrosia. From some cause, I know 

 not what, all the larvae chose to die ; and as Natty Bumpo says of tlie 

 Injuns, " when they choose to die they will, and you can't help it." 

 I was much grieved at this example of obstinacy, because I knew 

 just exactly what ought to have come out of the cocoons, but did not 

 know exactly what ought to stay in ; in other words, I knew the male, 

 for Dr. Bachman had given me one he himself had raised, but did not 

 know the female. 



This male, the only specimen of the insect in my possession, is a 

 Thyridopteryx, and I think identical with the one described by Mr. 

 Stephens, the Sphinx Ephemeraeformis of Haworth, though Mr. Ste- 

 phens thinks otherwise. 1 was unable, a thing I much regretted, to 

 make any further observations on this interesting insect, but what was 

 wanting to me a more lucky observer has obtained. When in Alaba- 

 ma, Mr. Gosse had a full opportunity of going into the whole of the 

 " crittur's " history, and has a most beautiful set of drawings of it in 

 all its stages, and a world of observations on its habits which he (old 



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