434 LEPIDOPTERA. 



colored spot, the hairs of which rise upwards behind and 

 form a crest. All the whitish lines on the fore wings are 

 more or less bounded externally with rust-red. It expands 

 from one inch and one quarter to one inch and five eighths. 

 In Georgia this insect breeds twice a year ; and the cater- 

 pillars eat the leaves of the willow as well as those of the 

 poplar.* 



2. Owlet-Moths. (JVoctuce.) 



Our second tribe of moths, the Nocture of Linnaeus, ap- 

 pears to have been thus named from Noctua, an owl, because 

 they fly chiefly by night, and are hence called Uulen, or owl- 

 moths, by the Germans. This tribe contains a very large 

 number of thick-bodied and swift-flying moths, most of 

 which may be distinguished by the following characters. 

 The antennae are long and tapering, and seldom pectinated 

 even in the males ; the tongue is long ; the feelers are very 

 distinct, and project more or less beyond the face, the two 

 lower joints being compressed or flattened at the sides, and 

 the last joint is slender and small ; the thorax is thick, with 

 rather prominent collar and shoulders, and is often crested 

 on the top ; the body tapers behind ; the wings are always 

 fastened together by bristles and hooks, are generally roofed, 

 when at rest, and each of the fore wings is marked behind 

 the middle of the front margin with two spots, one of them 

 round and small, and the other larger and kidney-shaped. 

 A few of them fly by day, the others only at night. Their 

 colors are generally dull, and of some shade of gray or 

 brown, and so extremely alike are they in their markings, 

 that it is very difficult to describe them without the aid of 

 figures, which cannot be expected in this treatise. The cat- 

 erpillars are nearly cylindrical, for the most part naked, 

 though some are hairy, slow in their motions, and generally 

 provided with sixteen legs ; those with fewer legs never want 



* See Phalcena anastomosis of Smith, in Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 143, 

 pi. 72. 



