SPHINXES. 
147 
them beneath the fleshy folds of the much swollen following segment, 
thus making the insect look very blunt and humped at the anterior 
end. It is smooth, without hairs or tubercles except an eye-like spot 
on the top of the posterior end of the body. The color of the larva 
is usually light green, although specimens are to be found of a flesh 
or brownish-pink color. Along the side runs a row of broad oval 
spots, yellowish in color, obliquely placed on the segments. The 
forward part of the body is covered with a fine stipple of black dots. 
The young of this larva is interesting from the fact that it is usually 
light pink, and has a curled spine on the posterior end of its body, 
which after two or three moults disappears, leaving only the eye-like 
tubercle before mentioned. 
This caterpillar feeds on the leaves of the grape and Virginia creeper, 
and on account of its large size, often three or four inches long, and 
as thick as one’s thumb, it consumes large quantities of the leaves, 
even eating the midrib down to the stem. It is rarely, however, found 
sufficiently abundant to do any great damage. 
In Philampelus achemon the larva very closely resembles that of 
the preceding species both in its habits and its shape and coloring, ex¬ 
cept that the spots arranged along the sides are much longer and nar¬ 
rower, are scalloped on their edges, and a long yellowish stripe extends 
above the spots the entire length of the caterpillar. This species also 
feeds on the grape and Virginia creeper, and when fully grown in the 
latter part of August or early in September it, like the larva of the 
preceding species, burrows into the earth a few inches, where it 
changes to a pupa without making a cocoon of any kind, simply 
excavating a smooth cavity or cell in the soil. The perfect insect 
comes forth the next July. This moth is somewhat smaller than 
Philampelus pandorus, but is very beautiful, the forward wings and 
the body of a light pinkish-brown with intensely dark brown patches 
