EMPEROE MOTH. 279 



Laving its rings or segments very deeply cut, covered with 

 bristle-like hairs, and having some light lines along the back 

 and sides. The " Charangon de la Patience " of De Geer, is a 

 beetle of this genus. In both cases the cocoons are afiBxed to 

 the under side of the leaves, whether they are attached to the 

 mullein or the heath, so that' they are not readily seen, except by 

 careful observers, who know where to look for them. In the 

 insect room at the British Museum there is a beautiful series of 

 these delicately formed cocoons, still adhering to the diy and 

 shrivelled leaves of the plant on which the beetle had fed. 



We now come to the pensile lepidoptera, of which a number 

 of specimens will be mentioned. They all belong to the moths, 

 the pensile butterflies being content with suspending themselves 

 by a couple of threads, without taking the trouble to build or 

 spin a nest. 



One of the most beautiful of these nests is the cocoon of the 

 common Empeeoh Moth (Satumia pavonia-minar). The moth 

 itself is very beautiful, with its broad, soft-plumaged, pink-eyed 

 wings, but it is even equalled by the larva in beauty of colour, a 

 phenomena not very usual among the lepidoptera. The rings or 

 segments of the caterpillar are rounded and deeply cut, and are 

 remarkable for the tufts of golden-coloured bristles with which 

 they are covered, each tuft springing from a raised and rounded 

 tubercle. The body itself is of a beautiful leaf green. 



The cocoon which is made by this remarkable insect is ex- 

 tremely beautiful, though its beauty does not appear to a careless 

 observer. Some twenty years ago, when I first began to study 

 practical entomology, and had no access to the books that were 

 then published on the subject, I took to breeding every caterpillar 

 that could be found, not having the least idea what kind of being 

 would issue from it. Among them was a caterpUlar which 

 struck my fancy so much, by its green body and golden tufts, 

 that I made a coloured drawing of it, and constructed for its 

 benefit a separate cage, wherein it lived for some little time, and 

 then spim a silken cocoon of a flask-like shape, very rough and 

 loose on the exterior. 



Some time afterwards, upon looking into the box, I saw a 

 beautiful moth clinging to the side. How the creature had 

 gained admission I could not conceive, for the cocoon seemed to 



