The Canadian Horticulturist. 



277 



one of the largest and most interest- 

 ing of all our native moths. The cat- 

 erpillar is no dwarf, measuring as it 

 often does some four inches in length, 

 and being nearly as thick as a man's 

 thumb. It looks rather pretty, with 

 its pale green skin so beautifully or- 

 namented with a double row of blue 



Fig. 70.— Cocoon of the Cecroi'ia Moth. 



tubercles along each side, and a 

 double row of yellow ones along the 

 back, excepting those near the head 

 and tail which are coral red. As one 

 might imagine from his size, this fel- 

 low is a voracious feeder and is not 



over-partial to any one kind of tree ; 

 however it is most often found upon 

 the apple and is able to defoliate a 

 small tree in a short time. He has 

 gone through several changes in e,\- 

 terior appearance, since he made his 

 e.xit from the egg, and has now 

 changed his clothes for the last time 

 before his transformation. 



It is worth the time for any of our 

 readers who have an interest in the 

 study of insects, to place one of these 

 moths in a box and feed it a few 

 apple leaves until it spms its cocoon, 

 (see fig. 70) a rusty grey pod-shaped 

 coffin, made of two layers of silk, in 

 which it spends the time until its 

 resurrection time, in the May or June 

 of the coming spring. This cocoon 

 is about three inches long, and some- 

 times the silk is unwound for use, Imt 

 with much greater difficulty than that 

 of the Polyphemus moth, which also 

 belongs to the Bombyx or Silkworm 

 family. Then, if one is so fortunate 

 as to see it issue from its chrysalis, 

 and develop into its beautified state, 

 as we have done, he will feel amply 

 repaid. Issuing forth from the smal- 

 ler end of the cocoon it climbs up 

 some convenient place where its 

 wings may hang down, and gradu- 

 ally unfold their beauty ; and, in the 

 course of an hour, the insect will 

 have developed to its full size, often 

 measuring from five to seven inches 

 from tip to tip of its wings. Our en- 

 graving, fig. 71, kindly loaned by the 

 Entomological Society, is an excellent 

 representation of this magnificent 

 moth, which our readers cannot fail 

 to recognize. The prevailing color 

 of the wings is a rich brown, varied 

 by a wavy dull-red band edged with 



