THE NONAGRIANS. 
437 
measures from one inch and three quarters to two inches or 
more in length. It is of a greenish-yellow color above, with 
the head, tail, 'belly, and feet black ; its body is covered with 
long and soft yellow hairs, growing immediately from the 
skin ; on the top of the fourth ring there are two long, slen- 
der, and erect tufts of black hairs, two more on the sixth 
ring, and a single pencil on the eleventh ring.* While at 
rest, it remains curled sidewise on a leaf. When about to 
make its cocoon, it creeps into chinks of the bark, or into 
cracks in fences, and spins a loose, half-oval web of silk, 
intermixed with the hairs of its body; under this it then 
makes another and tougher pod of silk, 
thickened with fragments of bark and wood, 
and, when its work is done, changes to a 
chrysalis (Fig. 218), in which state it re- 
mains till the following summer. 
The caterpillars of the Nonagrians (Nonagriadje f) are 
naked, long, slender, and tapering at each end, smooth, and 
generally of a faint reddish or greenish tint, with an oval, 
dark-colored, horny spot J on the top of the first and last 
ring. Most of them live within the stems of reeds, flags, 
and other water-plants ; some in the stems and even in the 
roots of plants remote from the water. They devour the 
pith and the inside of the roots, and transform in the same 
situations, having previously gnawed a hole from the inside 
of their retreat, through the side of the stem or root, to the 
outside skin, which is left untouched, and which the moth 
* Those naturalists who are familiar with the appearance of the European 
caterpillar of Apatela Aceris will perceive the great and essential difference be- 
tween it and that of our American Apatela , whiah bears about as much resem- 
blance to the former as does that of Astasia torrefacta of Sir J. E. Smith, an 
insect apparently belonging to the Notodontians, and near to Clostera and Pygara. 
Apatela signifies deceptive; and this name was probably given to the genus be- 
cause the caterpillars appear in the dress of Arctians and Liparians, but produce 
true owlet-moths or Noctuas. 
t From Nona grin, the meaning of which is uncertain. 
J Those dark horny spots are found on the first ring of most of the caterpillars 
that burrow in the stems of plants, or in the ground. 
Fig. 218. 
