240 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS 



soTuethiug else. When we went back a male prometliea 

 was fluttering over an empty loop of worsted and two 

 female wings, and there was silence in the mountain- 

 ash tree where the catbird had been singing steadily 

 for a long time. We may wrong him. He may have 

 had nothing to do with it. It may have been English 

 sparrows. But the silence and the disappearance co- 

 incided. 



The moths are large and vary much in coloring and 

 marks. The males are almost black, or quite black, 

 with a clay-colored border, a wavy light line across the 

 wings, and an eye-spot in the purplish apex of each 

 fore wing. They have very broad antennae. Some- 

 times a male has an angular light spot on each wing, 

 but this is not as common. 



The female has reddish wings peppered with gray, 

 having clay-colored borders containing reddish spots 

 and lines and much more noticeable cross-lines. The 

 apical eye-spot is ver}^ marked, and the light angular 

 marks are conspicuous. The antennae are much nar- 

 rower than those of the male, and the abdomen is 

 much larger than that of the male. Both have very 

 "furry" bodies and a strong odor. 



Prometliea is double-brooded in the South, and has 

 been found so in Rhode Island by one entomologist, 

 but all ours have been single-brooded in Massachu- 

 setts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. 



