STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
677 
VAPORER MOTH. ITS COCOONS. CHRYSALIS. 
segment. Forward of this last pencil are two vesicles of a bright vermilion red or sometimes of a 
bright orange color, smooth and shining like sealing-wax, or as though they were wet with var¬ 
nish. They protrude upward from the middle of the tenth and eleventh segments, and are of a 
teat-like form, more long than thick, and rounded at their summits when fully distended. Some¬ 
times one of them may be seen wrinkled and retracted to half the sue of the other, and in a few 
moments after, inflated again to its full sire. Forward of the anterior vesicle are two small yellow 
oval dots, and on the next or ninth segment are two similar dots, but larger. The head is black, 
polished and shining. The underside is yellowish white, and all the legs are light yellow. 
When the caterpillar has finished feeding it wanders about until it finds a 
suitable situation in which to place its cocoon. The corner formed at the 
lower edges of the clapboards of buildings furnishes such a retreat as it desires, 
and the cocoons of this moth may frequently be seen here, two or more of 
them being sometimes placed together, with the fore end of one overlapping 
the hind end of the other. 
The cocoons are an inch and a quarter long and half an inch thick, and are 
formed of white silken threads, woven in with which are the hairs of the body 
of the caterpillar. They consist of a dense inner pod or sack inclosed within 
a looser texture of threads crossing each other in every direction. The whole 
of the cocoon, however, is so thin and slight that the inclosed inhabitant may 
frequently be seen through its walls. When the caterpillar first commences 
forming its cocoon and has inclosed itself inside of a few of the outermost 
threads of this structure, it finds its pencils of long hairs impede it in turning 
around within such a narrow space and embarrass all its operations. It there^ 
fore plucks out these long hairs, one after another, and to get rid of them, 
weaves them into the walls of the cocoon with' the threads it is spinning. And 
as the space around it becomes more and more circumscribed as the work pro¬ 
gresses, the shorter hairs in their turn are plucked out and similarly disposed 
of, the skin of the caterpillar thus becoming denuded of all its rigid hairs, 
including the short ones of the brushes, when the work is finished. Thus it 
will be seen that it is chiefly the long black hairs with knobs on their ends 
which are interwoven in the loose outer walls of the cocoon, and only the 
short yellow hairs of the brushes which enter into the tissue of the more 
densely woven pod inside. 
In a short time after its cocoon is finished the inclosed insect casts off its 
larva skin. The dry and shrunken relics of this skin, of which the black 
shining head is the only portion which retains its natural appearance, are 
crowded backward into the hind part of the cocoon, and the insect now appears 
in its pupa or chrysalis form. 
Guenee says the chrysalis of the female antiqua is glabuous and of a yel¬ 
lowish color. Our species is clothed with long white hairs, and its color is 
greenish white with the back partly or wholly black. It is soft and shining, 
0.70 long and 0.30 thick, egg-shaped, ending in a black thorn-like point, the 
tip of which is furnished with minute hooks which are fastened into the 
threads of the cocoon, whereby it is securely held therein. 
The Female Chrysalis has the head and thorax remarkably small and short, measuring only 
8-10 in length. The thorax is black and the head is usually of a paje smoky yellowish oolor with 
the mouth black, and the eyes sometimes red, sometimes black. The sheaths of the legs, firmly 
•oldered upon tho breast, are scarcely a third of the length of tho body, the longest pair reaching 
