ORDKR IV. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



From this statistical table it will be seen that the de 

 crease of raised silk-cocoons in this country amounts to 

 50,208 pounds; but at the same time we perceive with 

 pleasure that they were rather increasing in the State of 

 New York, and still more in Maine, Indiana, and Tennes 

 see. In Kentucky, also, according to the last census, 544 

 pounds of silk-cocoons were produced more than at the date 

 of the preceding census. 



But our limits will not allow us longer to dwell upon the 

 history and rearing of the Silk-worm, and we pass to the 

 consideration of its caterpillars, only referring our readers 

 for more complete details to the most modern and perhaps 

 the best work on the subject, viz., that of Count Dandolo, 

 of Venice : &quot; DelC arte di governare i lachi da sctta. Mila- 

 no, 1819.&quot; 



T/ ie Cccropia, Polyphemc, Luna, and Prometlica Moths. 



This noble family of large Moths is, perhaps, the hand 

 somest of all the nocturnal lepidoptera. They are beauti 

 fully covered with soft down, and are ornamented with a 

 great variety of splendid colors. It seems, at first view, 

 strange that colors so beautiful should be found on insects 

 that display themselves only at night ; but it is not, after 

 all, in dissonance with the poetry of Nature that they should 

 be seen sporting only in the cairn, starry night, on the soft 

 breezes that are laden with delicious fragrance, when the 

 fire-flies glisten on the earth like the reflection of twinkling 

 stars on the bosom of the placid water, and the mysterious 

 whip-poor-will or the lugubrious owl whistle their melan 

 choly music through the sombre forest. Often have we 

 roamed through Nature s open temple till the blazing sun 

 had gone to rest ; and, overcome with the day s fatigue, 

 have laid us down amidst the fragrance of wild flowers, 

 only to dream of things the day could not reveal. Thus 

 in the depths of slumber have we often laid, and in dreamy 



G2 



