LETTEES FEOM ALABAMA. 
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least, which I am but just now acquainted with. It 
is the Eed“Striped Hairstreak {Theda Poeas)^ a most 
active, vivacious little creature, measuring exactly 
one inch in expanse. The hind wings have each 
two thread-like appendages in the form of tails, 
which, though found in many species of the genus, 
are more developed in this than in any other of 
ours which I know. The upper surface is black, 
with a blue gloss ; the under side soft brown, with 
a transverse band of scarlet. It is fond of skipping 
about the bushes at the edge of the forest during 
the brightest hours of sunshine, or walking to and 
fro on a leaf, rubbing the two surfaces of the hind 
wings together, when erect ; but with so delicate 
a contact, that not an atom of the feathery bloom 
is rubbed off or displaced. 
I may not omit to mention the capture of that 
very fine insect, the Great Plane-tree Moth ( Gera- 
tocampa imperialis) ^ though I can give but a 
meagre account of its economy. My specimen is 
a female, measuring five inches and a-half in spread 
of wing, and was found lying motionless on the 
ground, beneath the lofty sycamores on the swampy 
bank of Mush Creek. It is exceedingly inert (as 
are many female moths, especially the thick-bodied 
Spliingidce and Bornhycidce)^ allowing itself to be 
handled without any resistance or attempt to es- 
cape, so that I should hardly know it to be alive, 
but for the slight adhesion of the tarsi, when the 
feet are touched. The colour is pale buff, each of 
the wings having a round purplish spot in the 
centre, and a band proceeding from the tip to the 
inner margin of the same hue ; there are also very 
many scattered dots, the whole being softened, or, 
as it were, blurred. The male I have seen only in 
