THE VELLEDA LAPPET-MOTH. 379 



vening between three narrow wavy white bands, the latter 

 being marked by an irregular gray line ; the veins are 

 white, prominent, and very distinct ; the hind wings are 

 gray, with a white hind border, on which are two inter- 

 rupted gray lines, and across the middle there is a broad, 

 faint, whitish band ; on the top of the thorax is an oblong 

 blackish spot, widening behind, and consisting of long black 

 and pearl-colored erect scales, shaped somewhat like the 

 handle of a spoon. There is a great disparity in the size 

 of the sexes, the males measuring only from one inch and 

 a half to one inch and three quarters across the wings, 

 while the females expand from two and a quarter to two 

 inches and three quarters or more. 

 The caterpillar (Fig. 178, young '^' ' ' 



caterpillar) of this fine moth I 

 have never seen alive ; but one 

 was sent to me, in the autumn 

 of 1828, by the late T. G. Fes- 

 senden, Esq., who received it from Newburyport, from a 

 correspondent, by whom it was found on the 5th of August, 

 sticking so fast to the limb of an apple-tree, that at first 

 it was mistaken for a cankered spot on the bark.* It was 

 said to have measured two inches and a half in length, but 

 when it came into my hands it had spun itself up in its 

 cocoon. A caterpillar of the same kind, found also on an 

 apple-tree, has been described by Miss Dix in Professor 

 Silliman's " Journal of Science." f This observing lady 

 states, that " when at rest the resemblance of its upper sur- 

 face was so exact with the young bark of the branch on 

 which it was fixed, that its presence might have escaped 

 the most accurate investigation ; and this deception was the 

 more complete from the unusual shape of the caterpillar, 

 which might be likened to the external third of a cylinder. 

 The sides of the body were cloaked and fringed with hairs. 



» See " New England Farmei-," Vol. VH. p. 33. 

 t Vol. XIX. pp. 63 and 63. 



