446 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
the base of the fringe. The specimens which I have gathered in Washington 
county have uniformly been of this variety. 
The antennce of these moths are about a third of the length of the wings. 
They are gray, with a double row of dark brown branches resembling the teeth 
of a comb. Each branch has a row of very fine hairs, like eye-lashes, along 
each side, and at its tip three bristles, one of which is much longer and direct¬ 
ed inward towards the head. The body is gray, with a small black tuft near 
the base of the abdomen. The under side is paler and the legs are varied with 
blackish. 
It is the male insects which we have described above. The 
females are totally different objects, to appearance, being desti¬ 
tute of wings, and having in place of them two small scales the 
tenth of an inch long and half as broad, situated upon each side 
of the thorax. The vaporer moth therefore is analagous to the 
canker worm in this respect, the females in both species resem¬ 
bling worms more than perfect insects. The body of the female 
vaporer moth is short and thick when it first crawls from the 
cocoon, and longer and more cylindrical after the eggs have 
been deposited, being over half an inch long and a third as 
broad. It is of an ash-gray color from the hairs with which the 
body is densely covered, and often a broad dusky stripe runs 
the whole length along the middle of the back. The colors be¬ 
come more dull and obscure after the eggs are deposited. The 
antennae in this sex are short and not branched as in the males, 
merely presenting a row of saw-like teeth along their inner side, 
each tooth having a short bristle at its apex. 
The females merely crawl from the inner to the outer side of 
their cocoons, and there remain awaiting the approach of their 
mates, who invariably find them immediately. The instinct of 
the males for discovering the opposite sex is remarkable; and 
collectors are accustomed to avail themselves of it for obtaining 
specimens. By placing a box in which a newly hatched female 
is enclosed, in the haunts of this species, dozens of males will 
sometimes be attracted to it. Thus the females commence de¬ 
positing their eggs often within a few hours after they have left 
the chrysalis state. The eggs are from one to two hundred in 
number, about the size of a mustard seed, white and round with 
a small depression in the summit. They are placed upon the 
cocoon from which the female came, and are enveloped in a large 
quantity of frothy, milk-white, viscid matter, causing them to 
