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LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
them almost invisible. On his becoming still, I 
observed that the wings were almost totally desti- 
tute of scales, and consequently transparent : the 
posterior pair very minute. On the posterior wings 
there was a very narrow band on the inner margin, 
which was clothed with black scales, and a few 
very sparingly scattered on an undefined stripe 
that ran down the anterior wings. The head, 
thorax, and abdomen, which were somewhat robust, 
were thickly clothed with black down ; the an- 
teimse doubly pectinate, curled, and very short. 
The moth measured half an inch in length and 
an inch in spread of wing. It flevr but a very 
few inches at a time, but constantly (or nearly so) 
vibrated its wings. When these organs were not 
in motion they were deflexed, and the abdomen 
was turned up. It was a male, and had proceeded 
from one of the smaller cases, at the mouth of which 
the pupa skin was left protruding about two-thirds 
of its length. Another pupa had just begun to 
make its head visible from the mouth of another 
cocoon. I then opened some of the larger female 
cocoons, but in most of them the pupse were filled 
with a soft satiny dust, of a buff-brown colour. In 
one cocoon I found the female evolved from the 
pupa ; the exuviae of which were likewise filled 
with this downy dust. The perfected female had 
little of the form of a moth, but appeared like a 
transparent bag of soft eggs ; the anterior parts 
were dark brown, and the limbs were very minute, 
flabby and almost undistinguishable, looking nearly 
decomposed. No wings were to be seen, and there 
was not a vestige of down upon the body, except 
two or three tufts near the tail, which resembled 
that left in the pupa-skin. I should have supposed 
