858 
LEPIDOPTERA. 
yil. Fig. 12, young caterpillar), -when fully grown, measure 
rather more than one inch in leno-th; their bodies are more 
slender than those of the other Arctians, and are very thinly 
clothed with hairs of a grayish color, intermingled with a few 
which are black. The general color of the body is greenish 
yellow dotted with black ; there is a broad blackish stripe 
along the top of the back, and a bright yellow stripe on each 
side. The warts, from which the thin bundles of spreading, 
silky hairs proceed, are black on the back, and rust-yellow or 
orano-e on the sides. The head and feet are black. 
o 
I have not observed the exact length of time required by 
these insects to come to maturity; but towards the end of 
August and during the month of September they leave the 
trees, disperse, and wander about, eating such plants as hap¬ 
pen to lie in their course, till they have found suitable places 
of shelter and concealment, where they make their thin and 
almost transparent cocoons (Plate YIL Fig. 10 ; Fig. 11, pu¬ 
pa), composed of a slight web of silk intermingled with a few 
hairs. They remain in the cocoons in the chrysalis state 
through the winter, and are transformed to moths in the 
.months of June and July. These moths are white and 
without spots ; the fore thighs are tawny yellow, and the 
feet blackish. Their wings expand from one inch and a 
quarter to one inch and three eighths. Their antennse and 
feelers do not differ essentially from those of the majority of 
the Arctians, the former in the males being doubly feathered 
beneath, and those of the females having two rows of minute 
teeth on the under side. This species was first described by 
me in the seventh volume of the Xew England Farmer, 
page 33, where I gave it the name of Arctia textor^ the weav¬ 
er, from the well-known habits of its caterpillar. Should it 
be found expedient to remove it from the genus Arctia^ I 
propose to call the genus which shall include it Hyphantria^ 
a Greek name for weaver, and place in the same genus the 
many-spotted ermine-moth, Arctia punctatissima^^ of Sir J. 
[19 Arctia punctatissima is Spilosoma cunea Drury. — Morris.] 
