STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
675 
modern vaporer moth, differs from the European species. 
several years since were placed in a glass jar with moist earth in its bottom. 
Early in May a number of these ground-fleas made their appearance in the 
jar. And as I have never met with this species except in that instance, I 
infer that it was bred from eggs in the Virginia straw and not from the New 
York earth in the jar, and that it is therefore a Southern insect! Can it be 
'he juvenile state of the following ? 
6 . The Marked Ground-flea, Symnthurus signifer, is about 0.03 in 
length, black, with two short pale yellow stripes upon the head, the underside 
and legs dull white. Antennae three-fourths the length of the body, black, 
their bases pale yellowish. The body is longer than broad, almost globular, 
without any projection at its tip, and about twice as broad as the head. 
Several specimens of this occurred in company with the preceding. 
7. Modern Vaporer Moth, Orgyia nova, new species. (Lepidoptera. Arctiidae.) 
Eating largo notches in the leaves of roses, of plum, apple and other trees, in June; a small 
pretty caterpillar of a whitish color with a black head and back, and five pencils of long black 
hair, orange spots on its sides, and along its back four straw-colored tufts and two small bright 
red protuberances; spinning a cocoon which in July gives out a rusty yellow moth about 1.20 in 
width, its fore wings largely clouded with dark brown and having a snow-white crescent near their 
inner hind angle; the female pale gray and without wings. 
In my Second Report I gave an account of our Common American Vaporer 
Moth, Orgyia leucosligma. I have since traced out the history of another 
species, which is closely like the European Orgyia antiqua, and is entered 
under this name by Dr. Harris in his Treatise on Injurious Insects. Our 
moth, however, differs from that of Europe, as I find ou comparing it with 
very nice specimens of the antiqua, which I owe to the kindness of my friend, 
Dr. Siehel, of Paris, and the colored figures and descriptions of that species 
given by different authors, in having its fore wings much more extensively 
cfouded with brown. And in its larva state it differs still more decidedly, in 
having towards the hind part of its back two small projecting vesicles of a 
bright red color, smooth and shining like sealing-wax. On referring to figures 
of the caterpillar of the antiqua which I meet with in Westwood’s Introduction, 
in Westwood and Humphrey’s British Moths, and the still more exact and 
beautiful illustrations in the “ Iconographie et Hist. Nat. des Chenilles ” of 
Duponchel and Gudncc, (vol. ii, pi. vi, fig. a and c) I find these vesicles are 
not represented as pertaining to that species, nor do the descriptions of these 
and other authors make any allusion to them; whilst the work last cited dis¬ 
tinctly figures similar vesicles as occurring in Orgyia fascetina (pi. xi, fig. a, b,) 
and particularly notices them in the accompanying text. We thus feel fully 
assured that these vesicles do not occur in the caterpillar of the antiqua, whilst 
m our American caterpillars they are constantly present, and are oue of the 
characters which first strike the eye of the observer. The chrysalis also 
differs from the European species in its colors and pubescence, in both sexes, 
as wo shall subsequently have occasion to notice. 
Linnasus named the European species antiqua or the Ancient, it having 
been observed and known a long time before. Now that we find our insect to 
