LEPIDOPTERA. — ARCTIIDE. 387 
of this new calamity, that prayers were ordered to be read in all the 
churches to avert its effects. (W. Curtis, A short History of the 
Brown- Tail Moth. London, 1782. 4to.) Hypogymna dispar and 
Psilura monacha are occasionally exceedingly destructive in Germany 
to the forests, which they completely strip of their foliage. 
Dr. T. W. Harris has published a memoir on the American salt- 
marsh caterpillar (Spilosoma acria), which is equally destructive to 
all kinds of herbage in certain seasons. (Massachus. Agricult. Repos. 
vol. vii. 1823.) 
Other larve (especially those of Orgyia, jig. 106. 5.) are furnished> 
in addition to the long slender hairs all over the body, with several 
short, thick, truncated tufts of hair on the back as well as at the sides, 
with several other longer and more slender tufts of hairs, each hair 
being thickened at the tip. (Swammerdam has published the details 
of the history of O. antiqua, in the 33d plate of his Book of Nature. 
See also Bree, in Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 10.) 
Of these tufted larva, the majority produce species not materially 
differing in the sexes; but some, forming the genus Orgyia, have 
females with the smallest rudiments of wings, and large swollen 
abdomens, and which are exceedingly sluggish in their habits, whilst 
the males are constantly on the wing, flitting about in the hottest 
weather of autumn ; thence, probably, termed vapourer moths (fig. 
106. 8. Orgyia antiqua 3; 9. 9; 5. larva; 6. pupa 6; 7. pupa ? of this 
insect ). 
M. Rambur has figured a curious species (Trichosoma Corsicum), 
allied to the tiger moths, having similarly spotted wings, but in which 
the wings of the females are not above one-third of the ordinary size, 
but with all the markings of the species. (Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 
1832. pl. 8.) Ina later number of the same work he has published 
another species, T. Boeticum, in which the female is almost apterous 
(1836, pl. 19.). 
The family likewise comprises several other genera, anomalous as 
respects their transformations. Of these, Cerura Schrank, or the 
puss and kitten moths, are the first to be noticed ; these have the 
larvee with only 14 feet, 6 pectoral and 8 ventral; the anal pair being 
obsolete, or rather converted into a furcate appendage at the ex- 
tremity of the body, containing a pair of long slender filaments capa- 
ble of being withdrawn or exserted at pleasure (fig. 107.2. Cerura 
furcula; 107.1. young larva of Cerura vinula, in a state of inaction). 
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