296 INSECTA, 
The caterpillar is striped longitudinally with white, blue, and 
reddish, whence its French specific name of Hivrée. It lives in 
society, and is very injurious to fruit trees. It forms a very 
thin cocoon, intermixed with a whitish farina. 
B. processionnea, 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, which 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 
sma]l 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 PszEupo-Bomsycgs, 
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 antenne 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. 
