26 



OAnOGK TIOEn-MOTH. ITS EOOS. CATRHPILLARS DESCniBED. THE COCOON AND CHRYSALIS. 



or red color with the hind wings, with a few brown spots upon them; and 

 in still other instances they are white with but a faint tinge of yellow. The 

 hind wings sometimes have their spots diminished and nearly obliterated. 

 In other instances these spots are increased in number and in size; again, 

 they become confluent, forming two broad black bands across the wing; 

 and finally, the whole wing is black and without spots. The Arctia Par- 

 thenon it cannot be doubted is one of the latter varieties of this species, in- 

 termediate between the banded winged and black winged varieties. It is 

 erroneously credited to Kirby in the Smithsonian Catalogue of Lepidoptera. 

 It was described and figured by Dr. Harris, in Agassiz' Lake Superior, and 

 is essentially distinguished as having the base and inner margin of its 

 hind wings black with the remaining portion yellow crossed by a broad 

 black band. 



The female moth above mentioned dropped seven hundred and forty-four 

 eggs in the course of four days after her capture. Being so prolific it ia 

 evident this insect would very soon become as abundant in our country aa 

 it is in Europe if it were not checked in its increase. It must be that 

 nearly all the caterpillars of each generation are destroyed, probably by 

 birds. Judging from the proceedings of the female when in confinement, 

 her eggs are laid upon the surface of leaves and firmly glued thereto in 

 clusters of from fifty to one hundred, the eggs in each cluster being placed 

 for the most part in contact with each other in regular rows. The eggs are 

 quite small, being about 0.034 in diameter. The^' arc globular, shining, 

 white, with a large faint spot on their summit of a watery appearance. 



The caterpillars which come from these eggs grow to about two inches 

 in length and have a thick cylindrical body which authors describe as being 

 of a deep black color, densely covered with long soft hairs which arise in 

 bundles from elevated warts. These hairs are of a bright red color on the 

 three fir.st rings and along the sides, and on the rest of the body arc black 

 with their ends gray. The warts from which the red hairs arise are of a 

 bluish gray color; those from which the black ones come are blackisli brown. 

 Three of these warts of a blue color and placed in a row one above the 

 other on each side of each ring are most obvious to the eye. The breathing 

 pores form a row of s^'ining white dots along each side. The head is shin- 

 ing black; the underside and feet are blackish brown. From all the oth'ir 

 caterpillars of our country this is particularly distinguished by the three 

 blue warts on each side of each segment, and the ciuispicuons row of white 

 dots along each side of tiie body. As it approaches maturity, however, its 

 unusually large size will alone suffice to point it out. It would appear to 

 be this creature to which Hiawatha is represented to refer, in Longfellow's 

 much admired po3m, as 



"The mighty caterpillar 

 Wny-muk-kwana, with the bear skin, 

 King of 1)11 the calerpillars! ' 



When it is fully grown it encloses itself in a grayish brown cocoon of a 

 soft closely woven texture, intermixed with the hairs of its body. In this 

 it changes to a chrysalis, having the form of an elongated q^q, of a shining 

 black color with the sutures yellowish brown and the pointed end two-lobed 



