420 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ways rainy, and the best of them soaking wet. But wet 

 nights were not always good, for a rainy moonlight 

 night produced next to nothing. All the chief tribes of 

 moths were represented, and the beauty and variety of 

 the species was very great. On good nights I was able to 

 capture from a hundred to two hundred and fifty moths, 

 and these comprised on each occasion from half to two- 

 thirds that number of distinct species. Some of them 

 would settle on the wall, some on the table, while many 

 would fly to the roof and give me a chase all over the 

 veranda before I could secure them. In order to show 

 the curious connection between the state of the weather 

 and the degree in which moths were attracted to light, I 

 made a list of my captures each night of my stay on the 

 hill. On twenty-six nights I 

 collected 1,386 moths, more 

 than 860 of them were col- 

 lected on four very wet and 

 dark nights. My success 

 here led me to hope that, by 

 similar arrangements, I 

 might in every island be able 

 to obtain abundance of these 

 insects; but, strange to say, 

 during the six succeeding 

 years I was never once able 

 to make any collections at 

 all approaching those at 

 Sarawak." Doctor Wallace 

 then gives some of the rea- 

 sons for this lack of success, 

 as dryness of the season ; 

 residence in a town or vil- 

 lage not close to a virgin 

 forest; other houses in the 

 neighborhood, and the inter- 

 ference of their lights with 

 those in the house occupied 

 by him, and so on. 



In the United States there 

 is another beautiful moth in 

 Callosamia promethca, a spe- 

 cies wherein the sexes are 

 so different that the ordinary 

 observer may well be par- 

 doned for mistaking them for two very distinct species. 

 Lutz, in his "Field Book of Insects," says: "I am sorry 

 that such an authority as Holland should have called this 

 species the Spice-bush Silk-moth, when 'Promethea' was 

 already in common usage ; furthermore, he says, truly, 

 that the 'insects subsist in the larval stage upon 

 a great variety of deciduous shrubs and trees, showing a 

 special predilection for * * * spice-bush and sassafras, 

 wild cherry, tulip and sweet gum trees.' " 



Nearly every one in the Atlantic States, who pays any 

 attention whatever to such things in nature, is familiar 

 with the small, swinging, bag-like cocoons of the 

 Promethea larva. Usually they are seen during the 

 spring and winter months, suspended from the twigs of 



MALE REGAL MOTH SEEN UPON UPPER VIEW 



Figure 4. Other figures of this species (the Citheronia regalis of Fabri- 

 cius), are to be seen in the July, 1919, American Forestry; it is here 

 shown as it appears in nature, with drooping wings and clinging to 



twig among the blossoms of 

 reared by Mrs. Bert Elliott, of 

 collection of the writer. 



the sassafras and spice-bush, and from some other shrubs 

 and trees. Promethea's caterpillar is a handsome one, 

 being of a bluish-green color, spotted, and ornamented 

 with coral red tubercles on the second and third body 

 segments, with another on the middle of the next to the 

 last segment behind, and smaller ones on the intervening 

 segments. Several authors have figured this larva, one 

 of the best cuts being that of Riley's, used by Doctor 

 Holland, who says: "Whether the silk produced by this 

 common and easily reared species could be utilized in 

 such a way as to make its production commercially profit- 

 able, is a problem to be solved in the future. No one up 

 to the present time has succeeded either in reeling or 

 carding the silk of the cocoons." 



Years ago, Packard, Dim- 

 mock, Minot, Edwards, Mor- 

 ris, Brodie, Saunders, Lint- 

 ner, Harris, and other ento- 

 mologists, contributed to the 

 life-history of this beautiful 

 insect; but none of them 

 seems to have very much to 

 say about its being a danger- 

 ous tree-pest ; and as a mat- 

 ter of fact, the harm it does 

 in such directions barely 

 amounts to anything worthy 

 of notice. Promethea, how- 

 ever, is a beautiful creature 

 in nature, and should be 

 studied for its own sake, to 

 the enlightenment of all who 

 treasure knowledge as such, 

 quite irrespective of the fact 

 of there being any commer- 

 cialism as its ultimate goal. 

 We have in our insect 

 fauna two other species, 

 namely the Tulip-tree Silk- 

 moth and the White-banded 

 Silk-moth (Callosamia cal- 

 leta) at least the present 

 writer gives the latter insect 

 that vernacular name be- 

 cause it may be distinguished 

 from the other two species by the single white band on the 

 collar and by another at the base of the thorax. 



The common Promethea ranges over nearly all the 

 eastern part of the United States, from southern Canada 

 to Florida, westward to the eastern boundary of the 

 Great Plains. 



In the case of the Tulip-tree Silk-moth, it does not 

 attach its cocoon to the twigs of the tree upon which it 

 is made, but it winds leaves about it. So, when the latter 

 falls to the ground in the autumn, the pupae go down with 

 them. Up to date this moth has been found only along 

 the Atlantic coasts, where it is by no means abundant. 

 Perhaps the most remarkable fact to be noticed in 

 regard to these Promethea moths is the truly extraordi- 



laurel bush. 

 Washington, 



This 

 and i 



specimen 

 now in 



was 

 the 



