442 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
leaf on which it was standing, he was for several moments ab¬ 
sorbed in contemplating its bright colors and the artistic arrange¬ 
ment of its elegant plumes. Then, as he was laying it down he 
said to himself, “ That is the prettiest thing I ever saw! ” Let 
us not murmer, if the leaves of our rose-bushes are somewhat 
gnawed and eroded, when they hereby produce for our admira¬ 
tion objects far more beautiful than we look for them to yield. 
These caterpillars are an inch or more in length, slender, sixteen footed,and 
have the skin of a cream yellow color with a black stripe along the middle of 
the back and a broader brown or black one upon each side. The body is thinly 
clothed with pale yellow hairs which radiate from small wart-like elevations, 
and in a row on the fore part of the back are four brush-like tufts of a deeper 
yellow color. On the hind part of the back are two little knobs or bosses of a 
bright coral red color, or like scaling wax, and the head is of the same color. 
Projecting upward from the hind end of the back like a camel’s hair pencil is 
a bundle of long black hairs, and inclining forward and outward from each side 
of the neck is a similar pencil. The hairs of these pencils are minutely bearded 
through their whole length, and each hair has a small knob at its end, which 
is formed of a tuft of minute bristles. The pencils have a jointed appearance, 
from their hairs being in sets of different lengths. The yellow hairs are also 
bearded, but have no knobs at their ends. 
I have, on willows and on basswood met with caterpillars differing from the 
preceding in having the head yellow, no red knobs upon the back, a black 
spot behind each of the brush-like tufts except the first, and beyond theso a 
deep y ellow instead of a black stripe, and no brown stripe along the sides. 
"Whether these are a distinct species, or only a variety, I am unable to say, two 
individuals which I reared having proved to be wingless females. 
These caterpillars do not associate together in companies, nor 
form any web for their protection, but live solitary, exposing them¬ 
selves openly upon the leaves and in the glare of sunlight, as if they 
thought that no creature would have a heart to injure anything 
so pretty as they are. They eat irregular notches in the margins 
of leaves, and where they are very numerous they consume the 
whole of the leaf, leaving nothing but the mid-vein. They feed 
upon many different kinds of trees, the elm, the maple, the horse 
chestnut, the oak, &c., but they appear to be most fond of the 
apple, the plum, the rose, and other perennials belonging to the 
Family Rosacea:. They attain their growth and spin their co¬ 
coons mostly during the latter half of the month of July. The 
cocoons are attached to the twigs and limbs of trees, and some¬ 
times to the leaves, and also to the posts and rails of fences, it 
probably being some of those caterpillars which are to produce 
male moths which select the latter situations. The cocoons are 
