172 



Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



Other Stinging Larvae. 

 Ex]3eriment8, similar to tlaese, made by me upon two other stinging 

 larvse, viz. : Hemileuca Maia (Drury) and Lagoa crispata Packard, may be 

 found recorded in the Twenty-third Report on the State Cabinet of Natural 

 History, 1872, pp. 143, 144, * and Twenty-fourth Report on the State 

 Museum of N. H., p. 140- l.f The last reference is to a portion of a 

 paper — "Transformations of Lagoa crispata" (pp. 138-145, he. cit.) — 

 based upon collections made at Center, N. Y., during a season of 

 such a phenomenal abundance of the larvse, on Quercus vaccinium, 

 Fteris aquilina (common brake), and other plants, that at least a 

 thousand examples, although feeding separately and scattered, could 

 have been taken withixi an hour's time. 



The Poisoning Attending the Sting. 

 Dr. George Dimmock, in an elaborate paper " On Some Glands 

 which open Externally on Insects," contained in Psyche, for Septem- 

 ber, October, 1882 (iii, pp. 387-401), gives authority for the assertion 

 that " the severe poisoning produced by the hairs of certain larvse of 

 the Bombycidce, is caused by the secretion from a minute gland at the 

 base of each hair. The secretion of these glands, which may be 

 formic acid or a formate in solution, fills the hollow central portion of 

 the hair, and when the sharp, often barbed, hairs are broken in the 

 flesh of attacking animals, the broken parts carry with them the 

 poisonous secretion." The writer attests to an instance in which one 

 of these larvse in being brushed away from the neck, inflicted so 

 severe a sting upon a middle finger, that the distal joint, healing only 

 after several months, remained somewhat stiffened and deformed at 

 the time of writing — after a lapse of thirty-seven years. 



The Moth. 

 The moth is shown in Figure 25. It has a very woolly, pale yellow 



body tinged with brown. The front 

 wings are umber-brown at the base, 

 fading to pale yellow outwardly. Their 

 surface is marked with fine lines of 

 silver-gray, and the front margins are 

 nearly black. The legs are yellow with 

 dusky feet. The wings of the male 

 moth spread about one inch ;. those of 

 the female, one inch and a-half. (Hubbard.) 



Of the two cocoons, made in August, by the larvse received from 

 Mr. Moore, one gave out a male moth on May 16th. The pupa had 



Pig. 25. 



■Lagoa opekculaeis- 

 female. 



•Or, Entomological Contributions [I], pp. 11, 12. t Or, EM. Contrib., II, pp. 36-7. 



