CATOCALA NEOGAMA. 203 



portion of their body when walking, after the man- 

 ner of the geometer caterpillars, thus indicating an 

 affinity, and forming a passage from the Noctuidse 

 to the Geometridse. The caterpillars generally feed 

 on a great variety of plants. The chrysalides are 

 often remarkable for their fine lilac or bluish colour, 

 appearing as if covered by a kind of bloom. 



Expansion of the wings, in C. neogama, about 

 three inches two lines. Head and thorax grey, the 

 latter with transverse dark lines in front. Upper 

 wings variegated with brown, ash-grey, and white, 

 and marked with numerous flexuose black lines, 

 most of them running obliquely across the wings ; 

 there is an ear-shaped spot in the centre, and a pretty 

 regular series of small dark spots not far from the 

 exterior margin. Hinder wings yellow, each with 

 two black bands, irregular on their edges, and nei- 

 ther reaching to the abdominal margin, the exterior 

 one broadest, and the other not recurved ; abdomen 

 yellow. 



The caterpillar (Plate XXVI. fig. 2) is reddish- 

 brown, with two darker lines near the back, and a 

 series of dark spots along the sides. It feeds on the 

 black American walnut (Juglans nigra, Linn.), and 

 like others of its tribe, when done feeding, it de- 

 scends from the leaves to the body of the tree, and 

 stretches itself along the bark, to which it bears so 

 much resemblance in colour and surface, as to be 

 scarcely distinguishable from it. The perfect insect 

 appears in June, and is found in Georgia and other 

 parts of America. 



