THE AECTIANS. 343 



white, and the thorax is dotted "with black. It expands 

 from one inch and a half to one and three quarters. Its 

 time of appearance here is from the middle of July till 

 the beginning of September. The caterpillar is unknown 

 to me ; but Drury states that he was informed it was of 

 the same color as the fore wings of the moth, (that is, yel- 

 low and white dotted with black,) and that it feeds upon 

 the blue lupines.* The European Beiopeia pulchetta, which 

 is very much like our species, feeds, in the caterpillar state, 

 on the leaves of the mouse-ear, Myosotis arvensis and palus- 

 tris; and it is probable that ours may be found on plants 

 of the same kind here. 



Some of the large and richly colored Lithosians resemble, 

 in many respects, the insects in the next family, called, 

 by the English, tiger and ermine moths. The caterpillars 

 of most of these tiger-moths are thickly covered with hairs, 

 whence they have received the name of woolly bears, and 

 the family, including them, that of Akctiad^, or Arctians, 

 from the Greek word for bear. The Arctians, or tiger- 

 moths, have shorter and thicker feelers than the Lithosians ; 

 their tongue is also for the most part very short, not 

 extending, when unrolled, much beyond the head ; their 

 antennae, with few exceptions, are doubly feathered on the 

 under side; but the feathering is rather narrow, and is 

 hardly visible in the females ; their wings are not crossed 

 on the top of the back,f but are roofed or slope downwards 

 on each side of the body, when at rest ; the thorax is thick, 

 and the abdomen is short and plump, and generally orna- 

 mented with rows of black spots. Their fore wings are 

 often variegated with dark-colored spots on a light ground, 

 or light-colored veins on a dark ground ; and the hind 

 wings are frequently red, orange, or yellow, spotted with 

 black or blue. They fly only in the night. Their caterpil- 



* Dairy's Illustrations, Vol. I. p. 52, pi. 24, fig. 8. 



t To this character there is an exception in the Lophocampa tessellaris, the 

 wings of which are closed like those of Lithosia quadra. 



