infests the Lombardy '-Poplar. 157 



count for many phenomena, exist, which cannot by any 

 means in our power be completely traced out. 



Several of the poplar-reptiles I put into glasses; tvyo 

 have come out, and appear to be night-butterflies or 

 moths. They are unlike any thing of the butterfly class 

 I have ever seen. In the description which I intended, 

 Dr. Vaughan has anticipated me. These, with others 

 that have come out in the experiments of other gentle- 

 men, satisfy me that I was wrong in my supposition that 

 they were bastard Caterpillars. I most readily and will- 

 ingly retract the error. Into this mistake I was led by 

 the difference in the economy of the lives of the animals, 

 as described by French naturalists, and as I found it to 

 be, together with the dissimilitude of the eyes and last 

 pair of feet. Is this animal a different species, or is it 

 changed by climate or food ? Or has it characters to 

 us uncommon, because our views and subject are 

 limited ? 



Dr. Vaughan mentions, that " the characters of this 

 metamorphosed Caterpillar are not strictly conformable 

 to those of the common butterfly." Those in my pos- 

 session have their smaller wings bespangled with red. 

 This the Doctor does not mention to have been among 

 the characteristics of the one he has described. It is a 

 misfortune that the Doctor did not give us the internal 

 structure of his butterfly. I would add the internal ana- 

 tomy, but it may not be delicate to enter on a province 

 he has assumed to himself. 



Baltimore, August 26th, 1806. 

 r.uppL, x 



