358 LEPIDOPTEEA. 



VII. Fig. 12, young caterpillar), when fully grown, measure 

 rather more than one inch in length ; their bodies are more 

 slender than those of the other Arctians, and are very thinly 

 clothed with hairs of a grayish color, intermingled with a few 

 which are black. The general color of the body is greenish 

 yellow dotted with black ; there is a broad blackish stripe 

 along the top of the back, and a bright yellow stripe on each 

 side. The warts, from which the thin bundles of spreading, 

 silky hairs proceed, are black on the back, and rust-yellow or 

 orange on the sides. The head and feet are black. 



I have not observed the exact length of time required by 

 these insects to come to maturity ; but towards the end of 

 August and during the month of September they leave the 

 trees, disperse, and wander about, eating such plants as hap- 

 pen to lie in their course, till they have found suitable places 

 of shelter and concealment, where they make their thin and 

 almost transparent cocoons (Plate VII. Fig. 10 ; Fig. 11, pu- 

 pa), composed of a slight web of silk intermingled with a few 

 hairs. They remain in the cocoons in the chrysalis state 

 through the winter, and are transformed to moths in the 

 months of June and July. These moths are white and 

 without spots ; the fore thighs are tawny yellow, and the 

 feet blackish. Their wings expand from one inch and a 

 quarter to one inch and three eighths. Their antennae and 

 feelers do not differ essentially from those of the majority of 

 the Arctians, the former in the males being doubly feathered 

 beneath, and those of the females having two rows of minute 

 teeth on the under side. This species was first described bv 

 me in the seventh volume of the New England Farmer, 

 page 33, where I gave it the name of Arctia textor, the weav- 

 er, from the well-known habits of its caterpillar. Should it 

 be found expedient to remove it from the genus Arctia, I 

 propose to call the genus which shall include it Hyphantria, 

 a Greek name for weaver, and place in the same genus the 

 many-spotted ermine-moth, Arctia punctatissima 19 of Sir J. 



[is Arctia pmctatisstma is Spilosoma cunea Dmry. — Morris.] 



