822 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
OAK. LEAVES. 
pended. This is about an inch in length and half as broad, and is placed per- 
pendicularly, obliquely, and probably horizontally also, according to the 
direction of the angle in which it is situated. It is more closely and 
evenly woven than the parts exterior to it, and like similar fine muslin 
fabrics from human looms, it is “ starched ” by the manufacturer, to 
render it more stiff, smooth and substantial, the meshes between the 
threads being filled with a thin yellowish paste from the mouth of the cater¬ 
pillar, which dried, gives the cocoon the appearance of being thinly dusted 
with powdered sulphur. The inclosed insect can be faintly seen through 
its walls. I he moth issues from the upper end of the cocoon, by crowding 
the threads there apart after it has softened and loosened them by wetting 
them with a fluid from its mouth, which imparts a pale brown tinge to the 
orifice thus formed. 
The MALE MOTH usually measures 1.20 across its spread wings. Its thorax is densely 
coated with soft hairs of a nankin yellow color. Its abdomen is covered with shorter hairs 
which are light umber or cinnamon brown on the back and tip and paler or nankin yellow on 
the sides. The antennae are gray, freckled with brown scales, and their branchesarc very dark 
brown. The face is brown with the tips of the feelers pale gray. The fore wings are gray, varied 
more or less with nankin yellow, and they are divided into three nearly equal portions by two 
straight dark brown lines which cross them obliquely, parallel with each other and with the 
hind margin. The space between these lines is usually brownish and darker than the rest of 
the wing, being quite often of the same dark brown color as the lines, whereby they become 
wholly lost. Sometimes the hind stripe is perceptibly margined on its hind side by a palo 
yellowish lino. The fringe is of the same dark brown color with tho oblique lines, with two 
whitish alternations towards its outer end. But sometimes it is of tho same color with tho 
wings and edged along its tip with whitish. Tho hind wings aro of a uniform pale umber or 
cinnamon brown, sometimes broadly grayish on the outer margin, and across their middle a 
faint darker brown band is usually perceptible, its edges on each side indefinite. The fringe 
is of the samo color with the wings or slightly darker and is tipped with whitish. The under 
side is paler umber brown, the hind wings often gray, and both pairs are somotimes crossed 
by a narrow dark brown band, which on the hind wings are curved outside of tho middle. 
All back of this band, on both wings, is often paler, and more so near the band. 
The female is 1.75 in width, and in addition to the shortness of the branches of her 
antenna:, differs from the malo in her fore wings, which are proportionally narrower and 
longer, with their hind margin ent off more obliquely and slightly wavy along its edge. 
Hence also the dark brown lines cross tho wings more obliquely, the hind one in particular 
forming a much more acute angle with tho outer margin. And all the wing back of this lino 
is sometimes paler or of a brownish ashy color. And the fringe of these wings has not the two 
whitish alternations which arc often so conspicuous in the male. The head and fore part of 
the thorax is cinnamon brown. The abdomen is black, clothed with brown hairs, though 
very thinly so on the anterior part of each segment, where these hairs are intermingled with 
silvery gray scales. 
The scales of the wings of this moth are very slightly attached, rubbing 
off with the gentlest touch, as though they were mere dust that had fallen 
upon the wings Hence it is almost impossible to secure specimens which 
are perfect and uneffaced, the insect fluttering with such strength and 
extreme vivacity when captured. And individuals taken wIicd abroad in 
the forests are usually worthless for the cabinet, all traces of their marks 
being obliterated and the wings having become more or less transparent 
from this loss of their scales. 
In addition to the oak this caterpillar is found upon the apple and cherry, 
