382 LEPIDOPTERA. 



middle, and sometimes kidney-shaped and opaque. These 

 moths commonly fly towards the close of the day, and in the 

 evening twilight. Their eggs are very numerous, amount- 

 ing to several hundreds from a single individual. 



Although the injuries committed by the caterpillars of the 

 Saturnians are by no means very great, the magnitude and 

 beauty of the moths render them very conspicuous and wor- 

 thy of notice. The largest kinds belong to that division of 

 the Bombyces called Attacus by Linnaeus. They are dis- 

 tinguished from the rest of the Saturnians by having wide 

 and flat antennae, like short oval feathers, in both sexes, and 

 by the fleshy warts on the backs of their caterpillars, which 

 are richly colored, and tipped with minute bristles. Pre- 

 eminent above all our moths in queenly beauty is the Atta- 

 cus Luna (Fig. 179), or Luna moth, its specific name being 

 the same as that given by the Romans to the moon, poetically 

 styled " fair empress of the night." The wings of this fine 

 insect are of a delicate light-green color, and the hinder 

 angle of the posterior wings is prolonged, so as to form a 

 tail to each, of an inch and a half or more in length ; there 

 is a broad purple-brown stripe along the front edge of the 

 fore wings, extending also across the thorax, and sending 

 backwards a little branch to an eye-like spot near the middle 

 of the wing ; these eye-spots, of which there is one on each 

 of the wings, are transparent in the centre, and are encircled 

 by rings of white, red, yellow, and black ; the hinder borders 

 of the wings are more or less edged or scalloped with purple- 

 brown ; the body is covered with a white kind of wool ; the 

 antenuEE are ochre-yellow ; and the legs are purple-brown. 

 The wings expand from four inches and three quarters to 

 five inches and a half. The caterpillar of this moth lives on 

 the walnut and hickory, on which it may be found, fully 

 grown, towards the end of July and during the month of 

 August. It is of a pale and very clear bluish-green color ; 

 there is a yellow stripe on each side of the body, and the 

 back is crossed, between the rings, by transverse lines of 



