3 8 4 
The Moths and Butterflies 
and spins a tough oval cocoon fastened securely to the side of a twig. 
The moth issues in the summer of the following year. The cocoon of M . 
opercularis so closely resembles a terminal bud of the Southern live-oak on 
which the caterpillars mostly feed that it is almost impossible to detect it, 
especially as both twigs and cocoons are covered with small bits of lichen. 
Another small family, with thirty-three species, of interest because of 
the odd character of the larvae, is that of the slug-caterpillar moths, the 
Eucleidae (or Cochlidiidae). The moths themselves are small and stout, 
mostly rather strikingly colored, with brown, apple-green, and cinnamon 
prevailing. The larvae are slug-like, short, thick, nearly oblong and mostly 
spiny and gaudily colored. The spiny oak-slug, formidably armed with 
branching spines and common on oaks and willows in the east, is the larva 
of Euclea delphinii , a small, robust, deep-reddish-brown moth with bright 
green spots on the wings. The saddle-back caterpillar, Sibine (Empretia) 
stimulea , has a striking squarish green blotch on the back, with an oval pur¬ 
plish spot in the middle. It has branching spiny hairs, which affect some 
persons like nettles, producing severe inflammation. It feeds on many 
plants, on oak and other forest trees in the east, and often on corn in the 
west. The moth is lustrous seal- and chocolate-brown, with a few small 
white dots on the wings. Another slug-caterpillar is the pale apple-green 
larva, with dorsal brown blotch, of Prolimacodes (Eulimacodes) scapha , 
a stout wood-brown moth, expanding one inch, with a curved silvery line 
on each fore wing, behind which the wing surface is paler than in front. 
None of the species of this family has been found west of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains except in Texas. Par as a chloris has the fore wings brown at base 
and outer margin and elsewhere apple-green; the hind wings are clayey 
yellow. Its larva is bright scarlet with four blue-black lines along the back 
and with stinging yellow tubercles. It feeds on cherry, apple, and rose. 
Euclea pcenulata has chocolate-brown fore wings with an irregular bright 
green elongate curving blotch, and the hind wings soft wood-brown. 
The most extraordinary species in this family of moths with strange 
larvae is the hag-moth, Phobetron pithecium, whose larva is one of the 
oddest known. It is nearly square, dark brown, and bears eight singular 
fleshy processes projecting from the sides. These processes, which are half 
as long as the larva itself, are covered with feathery brown hairs, among 
which are longer black, stinging hairs. Thus covered, and twisting curi¬ 
ously up and back, they resemble heavy locks of hair and give the name 
hag-moth to the species. The moth is rarely seen; it is dusky purple- 
brown with ocherous patches on the back and a light yellow tuft on each 
middle leg; the fore wings are variegated with pale yellowish brown, and 
crossed by a narrow wavy curved band of the same color; the hind wings 
are sable, bordered with yellowish in the female. 
