Sept. 1898.1 Seifert : Life-History of Feralia 
jocosa. 
183 
kept carefully with hemlock sprigs in large glass vessels, they remained 
nearly inactive and finally the females laid unfertilized eggs. It may 
be mentioned here that these moths can be kept alive for a compara¬ 
tively long time when fed on slices of fresh apple. 
The entire existence of this insect is bound and admirably adapted 
to the conifer on which it feeds. In April and May the mature hem¬ 
locks develop their flowers. The staminate aments are produced pro¬ 
fusely on the younger, higher branches. The moth is only to be found 
on the larger trees. The impregnated female runs restlessly up and 
down the branchlets until it finds a twig with the budding staminate 
aments. These latter appear in numerous clusters and here on the ad¬ 
joining leaves the moth deposits its rather large, pale honey yellow eggs. 
One or a few are glued to a leaf, mostly on the under side. The whole 
number of eggs rarely reaches 150. 
The eggs hatch atter 14 to 16 days. The pale greenish yellow larvae 
at once attack the undeveloped anther sacks and feed on these only at 
this stage. They bury their heads and part of their bodies in the buds, 
covering themselves over with pollen grains. As soon as the anthers 
reach maturity, develop their tender filaments and turn light brown the 
young caterpillars leave them entirely and take to the new leaves which 
have just opened. In the successive stages they gradually abandon the 
growing leafy shoots, touching them only occasionally and, after the 
last molt, feed exclusively on the deep green perennial leaves. They 
often denude small twigs of their leaves and leave only the light green 
terminal shoots on the branches. 
By the changes of color and design during growth the larvae follow 
the successively acquired food habits. Very young larvae are pale yel¬ 
lowish green, the color of the budding staminate aments; after this 
they change to bright, light green; then they obtain pale white longitu¬ 
dinal bands; later on they change to bright pea green with intense 
white stripes from the head to anal segment and a cherry red supra- 
stigmatal line bordering the white stigmatal stripe; at last the bands 
are broken into oval spots partly tinted and edged with yellow and red. 
Now the glossy, deep pea green, checkered caterpillar is admirably 
adapted to the deep green lacquered perennial leaves of the hemlock, 
variegated with flowers and buds. About six weeks after leaving the 
shell, the larval period is completed and the trim creature descends 
the tree, probably at night, digging into the ground close to the trunk 
and near the surface to form an almost oval, soft, but tenacious cocoon 
of earth and silk. In this it transforms to a brown pupa in a few days. 
