136*4 The Zoologist — September, 186S. 



uniform in outline, yet compact. These larvae were about half an inch 

 long mostly, perhaps three -eighths of an inch, and seven-sixteenths 

 and one-thirty-second parts of an inch in diameter. Their heads of a 

 glossy jet-black colour, as also the anterior edge of the first joint of 

 segment: rest of the first, and the second and third joints of a trans- 

 lucent milky white, dorsally watery, with an interior wavy, brownish, 

 intestinal canal, visible through the transparent skin; there is also a 

 lateral tinge or bronze-yellow ; otherwise of a shining, water-and-milk- 

 like colour. I could observe no pectoral or anal legs ; they moved by 

 contracting and extending the segments of their body (twelve in 

 number) alternately, like that of a dipterous larva of Tipulidae. In 

 motion the convolutions of the intestinal canal were very apparent. 

 They seemed to interlace with each other, but, having been disturbed, 

 I cannot venture to say whether after any precise order, or by simple 

 conglomeration as chance may demand. When first seen they were 

 moving in a broad columnar mass, rope-like, seeming like a shining 

 guard-chain cord, of considerable thickness and quite ornamental, like 

 jet beads mixed in with pearly white beads in motion.' 



The following is a copy from a letter by Prof. W. S. Roedel, 

 Wytheville, Virginia, Aug. 4, 1865, in his own words: — 



"On Saturday, July 15, 1865, at North Lebanon, Pa., I observed in 

 a path at the foot of a hill, what I at first glance supposed to be the 

 cast-off skin of a serpent, which the object resembled in colour and 

 general appearance, but what, upon close inspection, 1 found to be a 

 multitude of caterpillars, a half-inch in length and one- thirty-second 

 part of an inch in diameter; head of a dull red or brownish colour; 

 bodies smooth and somewhat glistening. 



"These worms moved upon one another, piled upon and irregularly 

 interwoven among each other like a flattened rope. The head of the 

 column was much broader than the rest, being two inches wide, from 

 which dimension the column gradually tapered (to a point, I suppose, 

 for 1 did not see the end of it). The length of the column was four 

 feet to a fence, beyond which I did not examine it. 



" A portion of the column lay in the grass, through which it moved 

 without interruption, as if it had been a solid mass. The rate of 

 motion was extremely slow, not exceeding one-eighth of an inch in a 

 minute. The colour of the mass was as much like a rope of tow which 

 has been exposed to the weather as anything I can think of; it might 

 be called a rusty gray. The column was not cylindrical— that is, a 

 cross section would be elliptical." 



