780 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
TOBACCO-WORH. THE FARBNT MOTH. HER BONG TONGUE. HER FOOD. HER EGOS. 
millers ol both species are of a gray color with a row of five yellow spots 
along each side of the body, these spots being bordered with black, and 
the wings are varied with brown clouds and obscurely marked with black 
lines, and on their undersides the hind wings are crossed by two blackish 
zigzag bands, which are also obscurely traced upon the forward pair. Thus 
they are so alike in their colors, and in so many of those spots and marks 
which are most conspicuous, and which the eye first notices, that you feel 
quite certain on looking them over, that they are both one species. It is 
only when you come to closely inspect some particular points that you de¬ 
tect such discrepancies as assure you they really are different insects. The 
plainest mark of distinction between them is the black bands which cross 
the upperside of their hind wings. In the moth of our northern Tobacco- 
worm you see two zigzag bands on the middle of the wings, the same as 
on the underside. But in the southern you observe in place of these a single 
broadband, which is very slightly if at all. toothed or jagged along its 
sides. In addition to this, on the hind body of the former, you notice a 
slender black stripe along the middle of the back, of which there are no 
vestiges in the latter. These marks will suffice to enable any one who has 
cither cf these millers under his eye, to decide which species of the two itis. 
We will nest relate the biography of our insect. 
The moths do not all make their appearance simultaneously, but come out 
one after another, mostly in the month of July, though co’ntinuing to occur 
. abroad until the frosts of autumn have destroyed the flowers from which they 
are foil. During the day time they remain at rest, hid from view, and come 
out in the evening to feed and lay their eggs. From its thus appearing 
abroad upon the wing at the same hours when the musketos arc most 
numerous and annoying, Drury states that the southern species has in 
some parts of the West Indies obtained the name of the Musketo Hawk, it 
being also supposed that it is attracted forth at-that particular time in 
order to feed upon these petty, torments. This, however, is a great error. 
The sole food of these moths is the honey of flowers, for obtaining which 
they are furnished with a remarkably long slender tongue, which, when 
not in use, is coiled up like a watch spring, and concealed between the 
palpi or feelers. It may be unrolled and drawn out by insert ing a pin into 
the coil, and when fully extended is five or six inches in length. Thus itis 
epecially adapted for probing flowers which have long slender tubes, such 
as the tobacco, stramonium, petunia, &c., whose nectaries arc beyond the 
reach of bees and other honey-gathering insects. The moth resembles a 
humming bird in its motions, and also in the sound made by its wings as it is 
hovering around flowers and sipping the honey from them. The tongue is 
fully extended at such times; and hereby the moth is poised on its wings 
at a distance of some inches from the flower on which it is nourishing itself. 
Its eggs are probably placed on the underside of the leaves of those 
plants on which its young feeds. The .worms which come from these eggs 
arc voracious feeders, consuming a large quantity of foliage and growing 
rapidly, whereby some of the earliest ones attain their full size by the end 
of July; but it is during the month of August that they are present upon 
