GREEN CREAM- SPOTTED GRAPE- WORM. 57 



grown, sprinkled with minute cream-colored or straw-colored 

 spots. There is a cream-colored line along the back, and a yellow 

 line along the sides, connecting the spiracles, or breathing pores, 

 which appear like black points, each one being surrounded by a 

 narrow white ring. The perfect insect is a dark brown or black- 

 ish moth, varied with rather obscure whitish spots and zigzag 

 lines. The hind wings are dark coppery-red, with a dusky bor- 

 der. The larva is figured in the American Entomologist, Vol. L, 

 page 225, and the moth in Vol. II., p. 26. 



I received some of these Caterpillars from Mr. E. J. Ayers, of 

 Yilla Kidge, early in May, with the following note : " The green 

 worms with cream-colored spots, I find on my grape vines. They 

 are not numerous, but they are ravenous feeders. Should they 

 become numerous they would be very destructive." At the time 

 of their reception the leaves of ray cultivated grape vines were 

 but just opening, and I fed them on the leaves of the wild grape 

 vine which was running over my garden fence and which was 

 more advanced. They are, as Mr. Ayers remarks, gross feeders, 

 and are very easily reared. Some caterpillars are very restless in 

 confinement, but these creatures strongly remind me of a hog, 

 being perfectly contented so long as they had enough to eat. 

 Sometimes, after eating their fill, they would roll over upon their 

 sides and take a rest, very much like the gluttonous- animal just 

 referred to. 



They began to transform on the 16th of May, folding a piece 

 of grape leaf pretty close around their bodies, and lining the 

 cavity very slightly with silk. Different individuals remained in 

 the chrysalis state from forty-two to forty-eight days. The char- 

 acter of the moth is strongly contrasted with that of the larva with 

 respect to its activity. The caterpillar, as we have just stated, 

 is gluttonous and sluggish in its habits. The moth, on the con- 

 trary, is extremely alert, and rapid in its motions, lying in an ab- 

 rupt, zigzag manner. I came very near losing some of my 

 specimens, though they were within the walls of my otiice. One 

 of them flew precipitately across the room, dove in amongst the 

 books in one of my cases, and concealed itself so artfully and per- 

 tinaciously, that though I saw where it flew, I had to take down 

 upwards of an hundred volumes before I could discover it. 



This insect has also been bred by Mr. Riley, of St. Louis, and 

 A— 8 



