BOMBYCIDS. 
85 
specimen I ever took is two and a half inches across. Their colors 
are ashen gray, the fore wings being crossed by bands and rows of 
spots of darker gray. On the fore wings are two small silvery spots. 
A remarkable characteristic of these moths is their exceedingly short 
antennae. I have never seen the larva, and the life history of these 
moths is not known to me. Professor Comstock states that “the 
larva are nearly naked and grub-like in appearance, although fur¬ 
nished with sixteen legs. They feed upon wood and are found at 
the roots or within the stems of plants. They transform either in 
their burrows or in the case of those that feed outside of roots within 
loose cocoons.’'' S. argentomaculata I have taken in northern Ohio, 
while collecting with a lamp. As it circled about the room, it 
looked, with its long wings, a good deal like a large dragon-fly. I 
also found a specimen of the same species in the same locality in the 
daytime clinging to the under side of a blackberry leaf. S. argentata 
(the species figured) I hook at dusk in July in South Sudbury, Mass. 
It was flying slowly along the road in a wooded district, and I easily 
caught up with it and knocked it down with my hat. I have seen 
species of this genus from Mexico and Brazil; and a very large 
coarse-looking insect of the same genus was lately sent me from 
Cooktown, in Queensland, Australia. 
The Lasiocampians include the tent caterpillars and the lappet 
caterpillars. The moths belonging to this group are downy or 
woolly and thick-bodied, and are distinguished by the lack of the 
loop and bristle which holds the upper and lower wings together 
during flight in other moths. The caterpillars are soft-bodied creat¬ 
ures, almost velvety to the touch, and are clothed with short soft 
hairs, thickest on the sides, which do not arise from warts or tuber¬ 
cles. The antennae of these moths are feathered more broadly in the 
