THE ARCTIANS. 
343 
white, and the thorax is dotted with hlack. It expands 
from one inch and a half to one and three quarters. Its 
time of appearance here is from the middle of July till 
the beginning of September. The caterpillar is unknown 
to me; but Drury states that he was informed it was of 
the same color as the fore wings of the moth, (that is, yel¬ 
low and white dotted with black,) and that it feeds upon 
the blue lupines.* The European Deiopeia pulcliella^ which 
is very much like our species, feeds, in the caterpillar state, 
on the leaves of the mouse-ear, Myosotis arvensis and 
tris; and it is probable that ours may be found on plants 
of the same kind here. 
Some of the large and richly colored Lithosians resemble, 
in many respects, the insects in the next family, called, 
by the English, tiger and ermine moths. The caterpillars 
of most of these tiger-moths are thickly covered with hairs, 
whence they have received the name of woolly bears, and 
the family, including them, that of Arctiad^, or Arctians, 
from the Greek word for bear. The Arctians, or tiger- 
moths, have shorter and thicker feelers than the Lithosians; 
their tongue is also for the most part veiy short, not 
extending, when unrolled, much beyond the head; their 
antennae, with few exceptions, are doubly feathered on the 
under side; but the feathering is rather narrow, and is 
hardly visible in the females; their wings are not crossed 
on the top of the back,f but are roofed or slope downwards 
on each side of the body, when at rest; the thorax is thick, 
and the abdomen is short and plump, and generally orna¬ 
mented with rows of black spots. Their fore wings are 
often variegated with dark-colored spots on a light ground, 
or light-colored veins on a dark ground ; and the hind 
wings are frequently red, orange, or yellow, spotted with 
black or blue. They fly only in the night. Their caterpil- 
* Drunk’s Illustrations, Vol. I. p. 52, pi. 24, fig. 3. 
t To this character there is an exception in the Lophocampa iessellaris, the 
wings of w’hich are closed like those of Lithosia quadra. 
