438 
LEPIDOPTERA. 
can easily break through afterwards. The chrysalids are 
generally very long and cylindrical, and are blunt at the 
extremities. Most of the moths have very long bodies, a 
smooth thorax, and are of a yellowish clay or drab color; 
the fore wings want the usual spots, are faintly streaked and 
dotted with black, and have a scalloped hind margin. Those 
that do not live in water-plants are distinguished by brighter 
colors of orange-yellow and brown, with the usual spots 
more or less distinct on the fore wings, the margin of which 
is wavy; the collar is prominent, and the thorax crested. 
In all of them the antennse of the males are slightly thick¬ 
ened with short hairs beneath. 
These insects are fatal to the plants attacked, the greater 
part of which, however, are without value to the farmer. 
Indian corn must be excepted ; for it often suffers severely 
from the depredations of one of these Nonagrians, known to 
our farmers by the name of the spindle-worm. The Rev. 
L. W. Leonard has favored me with a specimen of this 
insect, its chrysalis, and its moth, together with some re¬ 
marks upon its habits; and the latter have also been described 
to me by an intelligent friend, conversant with agriculture. 
This insect receives its common name from its destroying the 
spindle of the Indian corn ; but its ravages generally begin 
while the corn-stalk is young, and before the spindlo rises 
much above the tuft of leaves in which it is embosomed. 
The mischief is discovered by the withering of the leaves, 
and, when these are taken hold of, they may often be drawn 
out with the included spindle. On examining the corn, a 
small hole may be seen in the side of the leafy stalk, near 
the ground, penetrating into the soft centre of the stalk, 
which, when cut open, will be found to be perforated, both 
upwards and downwards, by a slender worm-like caterpillar, 
whose excrementitious castings surround the orifice of the 
hole. This caterpillar grows to the length of an inch, or 
more, and to the thickness of a goose-quill. It is smooth, 
and apparently naked, yellowish, with the head, the top of 
