342 LEPIDOPTERA. 



in the males. The tongue and one pair of feelers are 

 very distinct and of moderate length. The back is smooth, 

 neither •woolly nor crested, but thickly covered with short 

 and close feather-like scales. The wings of many of the 

 Lithosians are prettily spotted, and they frequently fly in 

 the daytime like the Glaucopidians. Their caterpillars are 

 sparingly clothed with hairs, growing in little clusters from 

 minute warts on the surface of the body. They enclose 

 themselves in thin oblong cocoons of silk interwoven with 

 their own hairs. The rings of their chrysahds are gen- 

 erally so closely joined as not to admit of motion. 



Of about a dozen kinds inhabiting Massachusetts, I shall 

 describe only two. The first of these may be called Gno- 

 pJiria vittata,* ^^ the striped Gnophria. It is of a deep 

 scarlet color; its fore wings, which expand one inch and 

 one eighth, have two broad stripes, and a short stripe 

 between them at the tip, of a lead-color, and the hind 

 wings have a very broad lead-colored border behind ; the 

 middle of the abdomen and the joints of the legs are also 

 lead-colored. The caterpillar lives upon lichens, and may 

 be found under loose stones in the fields in the Spring. 

 It is dusky, and thinly covered with stiff, sharp, and barbed 

 black bristles, which grow singly from small warts. Early 

 in May it makes its cocoon, which is very thin and silky ; 

 and twenty days afterwards is transformed to a moth. 



By far the most elegant species is the Deiopeia hella 

 (Plate VI. Fig. 3), the beautiful Deiopeia. This moth 

 has naked bristle-formed antennae ; its fore wings are deep 

 yellow, crossed by about six white bands, on each of which 

 is a row of black dots ; the hind wings are scarlet red, 

 with an irregular border of black behind • the body is 



* This moth has all the essential characters of the European Gnophria i-ubri- 

 collis, an insect closely resembling in its colors the Procris Americana. The name 

 of the genns is derived from a Greek word signifying dusky, in allusion to the 

 dark colors of the insects. 



[17 Gnophria vitiata is Lithosia miniata Kirby. — Morris.] 



