420 
LF. PIDOPTERA. 
coons are very small, almost round, tough, and parchment- 
like, and are fastened to the twigs of the plants on which 
the insects live. The moths of some, if not of all, of the 
Limacodes make their escape by pushing off' one end of the 
cocoon, which separates like a little circular lid. 
The most common of these slug-caterpillars, in Massa- 
chusetts, live on walnut-trees. They come to their full 
size in September and October, and then measure five eighths 
of an inch in length, and rather more than three eighths 
across the middle. The body is thick, and its outline nearly 
diamond-shaped ; the back is a little hollowed, and the mid- 
dle of each side rises to an obtuse angle ; it is of a green 
color, with the elevated edges brown. The boat-like form 
of this caterpillar induced me to name it Limacodes ScapJia, 
the skiff Limacodes, in my “ Catalogue of the Insects of 
Massachusetts.” My specimens generally died after they 
had made their cocoons, and consequently the moth is un- 
Fig. 207. 
known to me. 
The moth of a Limacodes , called Cippus * (Fig. 207) by 
Sir J. E. Smith, is sometimes found 
in Massachusetts, from the middle of 
July till the 10th of August. It is 
of a reddish-brown color ; on each of 
the fore wings there is a small dark 
brown dot near the middle, and a broad 
wavy green band beginning at the base, and bending round 
till it touches the front margin near the tip ; behind a deep 
notch of this band, near the base of the wing, there is a 
triangular tawny spot, and another smaller one near the 
tip. The green band is sometimes broken into three tri- 
angular green spots, the middle one of which is wanting 
in some specimens. One half of the stalk of the antennas 
of the male is doubly feathered beneath ; the remainder to 
* Probably not the true Cippus of Fabricius, which is found in Surinam. 
There is a figure of our species in Oudrin’s “ Iconographie du Ufcgne Animal,’’ 
where it is named Limacodes Delphinii, but for what reason I know not, for i 
does not live on the Delphinium or larkspur. 
