OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



127 



THE BUCK MOTH OR MAIA MOTR — Saiur7i{ a [IlemUeuca]. 



Mala (Drury).* 



(Ord. Lei'idoptera, Fam. Bojibycice). 



This modest-looking but truly elegant moth was one of the first 

 acquisitions to my cabinet many years ago. During a farmer's life of 

 l^^''^' ^*^-^ iour years in Kanka- 



kee county, Ills., it 

 was my fortune to 

 spend many a day in 

 the so-called " oak- 

 ridges" lying along 

 the Indiana line. 

 Here, late in the 

 months of October 

 and November — 

 when the still and 

 hazy atmosphere, 

 and the sombre brown of the craggy oaks, boded so eloquently the 

 coming of cold to " rule the varied year" — when the rustling leaf under 

 the horse's tread, or the modulated echoes of the woodman's ax were 

 the only sounds of life, and animated nature seemed to have been 

 wooed to Lethean slumber — this crape- winged moth wcTuld often flut- 

 ter by as though loth to follow in the general sleep. It is one of the 

 few moths which fly in mid-day, though in the breeding cage it shows 

 a crepuscular habit, and is most active in the evening till dark, after 

 which it remains quiet. It is because it is seen flying in the fall 

 when the deer run that it has been commonly dubbed Buck Moth 

 or Deer Fly. The wings are so lightly covered with scales that they 

 are semi-transparent, and look like delicate black crape. The bands 

 across them are cream- white, and broadest on the hind wings. These 

 bands vary very much in width, and in nearly a hundred specimens 



number of stiff, acute, rufous spiues, (strougest dorsally) about Jj as loug as the diameter of body, in- 

 terspersed anteriorly, posteriorly and laterally M'ith much longer bristles. Stigmata oval and bright 

 yellow, (bhiek in alcoholic specimen) . Head small, dark copal-colored, with a yellow triangle in 

 front. Venter concolorous, the legless joints with four small verrucose warts. Thoracic legs same 

 «olor as head; prolegs same as body, both furnished with stifl", yellow hairs. The tips of spines are 

 more or less black, as are the points on the warts from which they spring. 



After last molt the warts are paler, except on joint 4, where they remain dark red, the subdorsal 

 pale spaces in front of the confluent warts beenme more cons])icuous, ami are sti-onglj'' relieved by tlie 

 broadening of the dorsal and subdorsal dark lines, the Y-shape of the fornur being nearly obliterated. 



Four specimens. Feeds on Oak, ^\'illow and Rose, and I have also found it on Rhas toxicoden- 

 dron, Persimmon and Peach. 



Spins a dirty white, elongate, thin and compact cocoon within a leaf. 



Chrysalis — like that of oblinita, dark brown, shagreeued, coarsely and acutely on four first ab- 

 dominal joints above, which joints have the hind borders raised and smooth. Anal joint unarmed. 

 Like all other Acronyctas which I have bred, it wears away the head of its cocoon on emerging by 

 persistent whirling — the moth secreting no liquid whatever. 



The spines of the larva sting quite sharplj', with slight inflammation of short duration. 



* This insect and the succeeding one (lo) were both referred to the older genus Saturnia by Ilarris 

 and other popular authors^ but have since been very properly separated. Together with Anisola ruH- 

 cunda, which follows, they belong to the very distinct subfamily Ceratocarapina of the Bombycida. 

 They rest with the wings closed, the hind ones extending a little in front of the anterior ones. 



