296 INSECTA. 



The caterpillar is striped longitudinally with white, blue, and 

 reddish, whence its French specific name of livree. It lives in 

 society, and is very injurious to fruit trees. It forms a very 

 thin cocoon, intermixed with a whitish farina. 



B. p7'ocessionnea. Fab. ; Reaum., Insect., II, x, xi. Cine- 

 reous ; wings of the same colour ; two obscure stripes near the 

 base of the upper ones, and a third, blackish, a little beyond 

 their middle, all transverse. 



The body of the caterpillars is obscure-cinereous, with a 

 blackish back, and some yellowish tubercles. They live in 

 society on the Oak, spin in common, when young, a tent, beneath 

 which they are sheltered, change their domicil frequently, until 

 after their third change of tegument, when they become sta- 

 tionary, and form a new dwelling in the same manner, resem- 

 bling a sort of sac and divided internally into several cells. 

 They usually issue from it, in the evening, in procession. One 

 of them is at the head and acts as a guide, then come two, in 

 the next line three, then four, and so on, each line regularly in- 

 creasing by a unit. They all follow the course of the leader. 

 Each one spins a cocoon, Avhich is placed in contact with that of 

 its neighbour, and mingles the hairs of its body in its tissue. 

 These hairs, as well as those of several other species, are very 

 small and fine, penetrate into the skin, and occasion violent 

 itchings and swellings. The 



B. pythio-campa is a species analogous to the processionnea. 

 The inhabitants of Madagascar employ the silk of a caterpil- 

 lar, which also forms large communities. The nest is some- 

 times three feet in height, and so closely are the cocoons 

 packed in it, that there is no hiatus to be found. A single nest 

 yields five hundred cocoons *. 

 The third section of the Nocturna, that of the Pseudo-Bombyces, 

 is composed of Lepidoptera, in which, as well as in the following 

 ones, the inferior wings are furnished with a bridle which fixes them 

 to the superior, when at rest. They are then entirely covered by 

 the latter, both being tectiform or horizontal, but with the inner 

 margin overlapped. The proboscis, towards the latter end of the 

 tribe, begins to lengthen, and in the last subgenera, even scarcely 

 differs from that of other Lepidoptera, except in being somewhat 

 shorter. The antennae are entirely pectinated' or serrated, at least 

 in the males. All their caterpillars live on the exterior parts of 

 plants. 



We will first separate those species in which the proboscis is very 

 short, and nowise adapted for suction. 



The caterpillars of some, and the greater number, live exposed 

 and do not construct portable dwellings. 



Of these, some are elongated, furnished with ordinary feet well 

 adapted for walking ; the annuli of the body are not soldered above. 

 Sometimes both sexes are provided with wings adapted for flight. 



• It belongs to the subgenus Sericaria, 



