FAMILY LIMACODIDJE 



FAMILY, limaco'did^ (slug-caterpUlars). 



LIMACODES SCAPHA 



GENUS, LiMACo'DES (slug-caterpillars). 

 SPECIES, SCAPHA ("aboat": boat-shaped). 



The first time we found these queer caterpillars, which 

 always suggest beechnuts although they are four- 

 sided, they were all over the bayberry and beach-plum 

 bushes, and of all sizes. We kept many of them 

 through the rest of their lives, and got the pretty little 

 moths the next year, but did not try for eggs. A few 

 years later an entomologist wrote to us asking for eggs 

 of scapJia, and One of Us went hunting. Nothing 

 could she find which at all resembled any eggs we had 

 ever had, but her attention was attracted by some 

 almost flat scales on the under side of bayberry-leaves, 

 and she brought home all she found. The scales were 

 slightly raised in the middle and were very prismatic 

 in some lights, while in others they could be seen with 

 great difficulty, if at all. She kept two or three of 

 them and sent the others to the entomologist, on the 

 chance of their being what he wanted. 



In due time they let loose larvae so small that a 

 magnifier was needed to determine their kind. They 

 were scapha, though not like the full-fed scaplia larvae. 

 The head was dark and drawn under the body. The 

 body was shaped like a flat-bottomed boat upside 



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