LEPIDOPTERA. — BOMBYCIDZ. $81 
section of his Phaleene named Attacus (Saturnia, Schrank). Amongst 
these the giant Atlas-moth, Saturnia Atlas, from China, the S. Cecropia 
and Luna, which have the hind wings produced into a tail, and S. 
Cynthia and Mylitta, the cocoons of which are employed in India for 
the production of silk, are amongst the largest species. From a com- 
munication made to Latreille of a Chinese manuscript upon the subject 
of the silk trade, it appears that the caterpillars of these two species 
are the wild species of silkworm of China. The former species, B. 
Cynthia, is the Arrindi silkworm of India, of which, as well as of the 
Tusseh silkworm, Dr. Roxburgh published a long account in the 
Trans. Linnean Soe. vol. vii. with plates. For further details re- 
lative to the last-named species, see also Ann. Sci. Nat. Aug. 1831, 
and Bull. Sci. Nat. Ferussac, Sept. 1831. See also Col. Sykes’s 
Memoir on the Kolisurra silkworm of the Deccan above referred 
to. 
Humboldt has also described a Mexican moth (Bombyx Madrono) 
which is social in its habits, the larva forming nests of a dense tissue 
and brilliant whiteness, which are employed by the natives in the ma- 
nufacture of silk. (Political Essay of New Spain, vol. iil. p. 59.) 
The fine North American species, Saturnia Promethea, exhibits an 
interesting peculiarity of habit in the construction of its cocoon, which 
it forms within a leaf of the Sassafras tree, having previously, however, 
fastened the stalk of the leaf to the stem by a strong silken web, 
whereby it is prevented from falling with the other leaves. (Peale’s 
Lepidopt. Americana, part i.) 
The majority of these species have the centre of the wings orna- 
mented with a talc-like spot. Others have a large eye-like spot 
at the same place (Saturnia Pavonia minor, &c.). This species, which 
is the only example of this particular group found in England, and is 
one of our most beautiful moths, constructs a remarkably interesting 
cocoon, the extremity not being close, but terminated by a converging 
circle of very stiff hairs, which enables the insect to make its escape 
from within, but completely prevents all ingress.* The larva of the 
beautiful American Saturnia Luna, distinguished for the length of the 
* See on the habits of this insect Loudon’s Mag. Nat. Hist., No.6. A writer 
in the Entomol. Mag., vol. iii. p. 206., has stated the curjous but rather doubt- 
ful fact, that a large caterpillar of this insect having formed its cocoon, produced 
two winged individuals, a male and a female. Kleesius also, as quoted by Kirby 
and Spence, asserts that he had once two specimens of Gastropacha quercifolia, 
