462 
LEPIDOPTEEA. 
the feelers are gray instead of being white. Specimens of 
a rather smaller size are sometimes found, resembling the 
figure and description given by Professor Peck, in which 
the whitish bands and spot are wanting, and there are three 
interrupted dusky lines across the fore wings, with an oblique 
blackish dash near the tip. Perhaps they constitute a dif¬ 
ferent species from that of the true canker-worm moth. 
Should this be the case, the latter may be called Anisopteryx 
fometaria^ or the Anisopteryx of the orchard, while the 
former should retain the name originally given to it by 
Professor Peck. The female is wingless, and its antennae 
are short, slender, and naked. Its body approaches to an 
oval fomi, but tapers and is turned up behind. It is dark 
ash-colored above, and gray beneath. 
It was formerly supposed that the canker-worm moths 
came out of the ground only in the spring. It is now 
known that many of them rise in the autumn and in the 
early part of the winter. In mild and open winters I have 
seen them in every month from October to March. They 
begin to make their appearance after the first hard frosts 
in the autumn, usually towards the end of October, and 
they continue to come forth, in greater or smaller numbers, 
according to the mildness or severity of the weather after 
the frosts have begun. Their general time of rising is in 
the spring, beginning about the middle of March, but some¬ 
times before, and sometimes after, this time; and they con¬ 
tinue to come forth for the space of about three weeks. 
It has been observed that there are more females than males 
among those that appear in the autumn and winter, and 
that the males are most abundant in the spring. 
Fig. 229 . sluggish females (Fig. 229) instinctively make 
¥ their way towards the nearest trees, and creep 
slowly up their trunks. In a few days afterwards 
they are followed by the winged and active males, 
which flutter about and accompany them in their 
ascent, during which the insects pair. Soon after this, the 
