QUEEN OF AMERICAN SILK-SPINWERS. 
O insect affords a better proof of high art in nature, 
and of the transcendent beauty of the Creator’s 
thoughts, than the Luna moth, which is as preéminent above 
her fellows as her namesake, the fair empress of the sky, 
above the lesser lights that dominate the night. Her elegant 
robes of green, set off with trimmings of purple, and jewelled 
with diamonds, added to her queenly grace and personal 
charms, will always distinguish her from the profanum vulgus 
of the articulata. 
And now for a short biographical sketch of this remarka- 
ble beauty from the cradle to the grave, and beyond, after 
she has assumed her resurrection-attire, to the day when, 
her appointed work on earth being ended, she quietly lays 
her body down to mingle with its native clay. 
In her childhood, or caterpillar state, her head is elliptical 
in shape, of a light pearly color, the rest of the body being 
a clear bluish-green. <A faint yellow band stretches along 
each side, just below the line of her breathing-organs, from 
the first to the tenth segment, while the back, between the 
several body-rings, is crossed by narrow transverse bars, 
similar in coloration. Each segment, after the fashion of her 
kith and kin, is adorned with small pearly warts, tinged with 
purple, some five or six in number, each tipped with a few 
simple hairs. Three brown spots, bordered above with 
yellow, ornament the end of the tail. An interesting variety, 
whose general color is a dull reddish-brown, is sometimes 
met with, but the lateral and transverse stripes of yellow 
have disappeared, and the pearl-colored warts with edges of 
