220 STATES OF INSECTS. 



apartments apparently much more spacious than neces- 

 sary. The transparent hammock-like cocoons of Hepi- 

 alus Humuli and Arctia villica, two other moths, would 

 contain several of their pupae. I possess one in which 

 the pupa is suspended in the centre, that is ten times its 

 size, and not very short in dimensions of that of Attacus 

 Papilla^ a giant silk-moth. The largest cocoon I ever 

 read or heard of, is that thus described by Mr. Hobhouse 

 in his Travels: " Depending," says he, "from the boughs 

 of the pines, near the Attic mountain Parties, and stretch- 

 ing across from tree to tree so as to obstruct our passage, 

 were the pods, thrice as big as a turkey's egg ! and the 

 thick webs of a chrysalis, whose moth must be far larger 

 than any of those in our country." a If this statement 

 is correct, and I am not aware that there is any reason 

 for doubting it, the cocoon must be vastly larger than the 

 pupa, or the moth it produced would far exceed in size 

 any yet known. Perhaps, however, as this gentleman is 

 probably no entomologist, what he took for a cocoon 

 might be a nidus, in which many larvae were associated, 

 of the nature of those formerly described b . 



With regard to figure, the majority are like those of 

 ■the silk-worm, of a shape more or less oval or elliptic : 

 some, however, vary from this. That of Lasiocampa 

 Riibi is oblong. I have one from New Holland some- 

 what resembling an acorn, fixed to the twigs of some tree 

 or shrub, of a very close silk, and covered by a circular 

 operculum, which the animal pushes off when it assumes 

 the imago; this is ovate or conico-ovate; others again are 

 globose c ; others are conical d , as that of Gastropacha 



a Travels in Greece, 285. »> See above, Vol. I. p. 476—. 



1 Merian Surinam, t. xv. A Reaum. ii. t. xxiii./. 5. 



