INSECTS. 125 



or even equal it in size. In its perfect or adult state it is a -winged 

 moth or miller, measuring, from the head to the tip of the closed 

 wings, from five eighths to three quarters of an inch in length, and 

 its wings expand from one inch and one tenth to one inch and four 

 tenths. The feelers are two in number ; and the tongue is very 

 short, and hardly visible. The fore-wings shut together flatly on 

 the top of the back, slope steeply downwards at the sides, and are 

 turned up at the end, somewhat like the tail of a fowl. The male 

 is of a dusty gray color ; his fore-wings are more or less glossed and 

 streaked with purple-brown on the outer edge, they have a few 

 dark brown spots near the inner margin, and they are scalloped or 

 notched inwardly at the end ; his hind-wings are light yellowish- 

 gray, with whitish fringes. The female is much larger than the 

 male, and much darker colored ; her fore-wings are proportionally 

 longer, not so deeply notched on the outer hind margin, and not 

 so much turned up at the end ; they are more tinged with purple- 

 brown, sprinkled with darker spots ; and the hind-wings are dirty 

 or grayish white. There are two broods of these insects in the 

 course of a year. Some winged moths of the first brood begin to 

 appear towards the end of April, or early in May ; those of the 

 second brood are most abundant in August ; but between these 

 periods, and even later, others come to perfection, and consequently 

 some of them may be found during the greater part of the summer. 

 By day they remain quiet on the sides or in the crevices of the bee- 

 house ; but, if disturbed at this time, they open their wings a little, 

 and spring or glide swiftly away, so that it is very difficult to seize 

 or to hold them. In the evening they take wing, when the bees 

 are at rest, and hover around the hive, till, having found the door, 

 they go in and lay their eggs. Those that are prevented by the 

 crowd, or by any other cause, from getting within the hive, laj 

 their eggs on the outside, or on the stand, and the little worm-like 

 caterpillars hatched therefrom easily creep into the hive through the 

 cracks, or gnaw a passage for themselves under the edges of it. 

 These caterpillars, at first, are not thicker than a thread. They 

 have sixteen legs. Their bodies are soft and tender, and of a yel- 

 lowish white color, sprinkled with a few little brownish dots, from 

 each of which proceeds a short hair ; their heads are brown and 

 shelly, and there are two brown spots on the top of the first ring, 

 Weak as they are, and unprovided with any natural means of de- 

 fence, destined, too, to dwell in the midst of the populous hive, sur 

 rounded by watchful and well-armed enemies, at whose expense 



