Article beginning on page 121.
Psyche 6:121-123, 1891.

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PSYCHE.
SOME OLD CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN HARRIS, SAY, AND P1CKERING.-I I.
[HARRIS TO SAY.]
MILTON, Dec'r 22, 1823.
Dear Sir,
It was with great pleasure that I re-
ceived your interesting letter, in reply to the one, which I had the honour of
addressing to you. Your attention to
my queries has emboldened me to
trouble you with another communica-
tion.
Our coasts and waters are extremely
barren of varieties of shells; but few
being found except the most ordinary &
common species of Mya, Balanus, So-
len, Cardium, Ostrea, Mytilus, Murex,
Turbo, & Helix. I have no collection
myself, but may, perhaps, be able to
procure you some of these from my
friends. The coat of mail, or Chiton,
I have never seen. If you will point
out by what conveyance I shall send
you the insects described by the late
Professor Peck, I shall be happy to for- ward them. Possibly a private oppor-
tunity may shortly occur to me. The
summer past, I procured a dozen or
more specimens of Xenos Peckii; but
the insects were so small that I did not succeed in preserving more than 2 or 3 ; one of which is at your service if desir- able. Prof. Peck described the insects,
named in my former letter, for the
Journal of the Mass. Agricult. Soc.
They are now out of print ; but if I can procure the numbers containing his
accounts. I shall endeavour to present
them to you.
The papers & lectures of
this lamented friend are in my hands,
and will be published by my father &
myself, as soon a5 subscriptions to a
sufficient amount shall be obtained.
Many of his drawings are exquisitely
fine, & somc of these it is proposed to
have engraved for the work. For the
sake of the widow, and orphan son it is
desirable that it should, be published;
I am doubtful however, whether it will
quite equal the expectations of all. His friends could have hardly expected so
n~uch from a self-taught naturalist, who, for nearly twenty years, pursued, but
with scanty resources, his studies in ob- scurity; and who, in his latter and
more prosperous days, was a victim to
the repeated attacks of disease. A
short sketch of the life of this most
interesting & amiable man will be pre-
fixed to the volume, and will then
enable the public to appreciate his
merits, & to commiserate his misfor-
tunes.
In the month of August last, I dis-
covered Cantharis marginata on the
banks of the Neponset, and have in-
cluded an account of it in a paper on
our indigenous medicinal species, drawn
up for the N. E. Medical Journal : it




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[August 1891,
will appear in the number, which is to
be issued in April. By the solicitations of one of the editors of the Boston Jour- nal of Philosophy, kc., I have consented to its publication in the number of that Journal for February next. The object
of this paper is principally to clear up some mistakes arising from ignorance
of the species, & to collect some facts
of practical utility ; it will be only in- teresting in this vicinity. Should you
see it, you will find your information
on the subject duly honoured. It was
my good fortune also to trace the pro-
gress of the Peach-tree insect; and
having, in July, obtained it in its pes- sect state, I concluded that it must be
a Zygaena, according to Fabricius' char- acter of that genus, in his Entomologia
Systematics ( I 793). An account of it I presented to an agricultural friend,
John Lowell, Esqr., & proposed to call
it Zygaena (Persicse) cyanea, alis
posticis hyalinis ; abdomine barbato,
cingula croceo. Soon afterwards, I
obtained, what I took to be another
species, from the Cherry-tree ; the larva being found to infest excrescences on
the trunk and limbs. This, as well as
the former, I was unable to find in
Fabricius' Glossata, & placed it in my
collection with this definition - Zy-
gaona (Cerasi) alis hyalinis, margine
fasciaque anticarum cyaneis, abdomine
barbato, chalybato ; barb& apice alba :
pedibus chalybatis, geniculis aureis, &c. This insect I afterwards obtained also
from the peach tree ; inhabiting, like
the preceding, beneath the bark at the
root. Still, the two were so dissimilar
that I could not suppose them to be
merely the sexes of one species. Your
having remarked the 'great difference, in appearance, of the sexes of Aegeria ex-
itiosa, has led me to think that, these may be the same you mention by that na,me.
Please inform me whether my defini-
tions correspond with your specimens ;
&, if so, whether you are fully per-
suaded that they are but sexual distinc- tions. My insects are certainly nearer
related to the genus Ageria of Leach,
in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, than
to that of Zygena. Does this latter
genus, according to the new arrange-
ment, contain insects with the anus
bearded ; or are we to look to the an-
tennas alone for a distinction from
Aegeria? I have discovered, here,
another insect, probably of the same
genus, which may be thus described -
Age1 ia (fulvicornis) brunnea, alis pos- ticis hyalinis ; margine postico, stigma- teque costali fuliginoso ; antennis,
tarsisque fulvis: abdomine barbato.*
There is a beautiful Bombyx, quite
common here, it appears to be a non-
descript, & Prof. Peck proposed to call
it B. Trifolii, from the larva being very fond of the common clover. I have
also found it feeding occasionally on
the leaves of the Balsam Poplar, & the
American Elm. Male sulphureous :
upper wings with two irregular lines &
a central macula ferruginous ; under
wings with an ocellus & arc of a blue-
black colour ; & an external arc & the
* Habitat unknown to me : found in meadows : mag- nitude of the first iiicntioned.




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A U ~ U S ~ 1~91.1 PSTCHE. 123
inner margin lateritious.
Pupil of the
ocellus pale, with a central white dash. Length from tip to tip of the expanded
wings 23 inches. Female fuscous;
upper wings with the lines & maculas
dark & somewhat hoary; under wings
croceous, with the same concentric arcs
& pupil as the male. Length between
the wing 3; inches. The larva of this
Eombyx is particularly curious - it is
between 2 & 3 inches long, & covered
with greenish or light yellow spines
which, like those of the, nettle are 'per- forated^ stinging, & contain a -poison-
ous liquor. The chrysalis hybernates
in a thin, silky, firm, cocoon ; & the
perfect insect is developed about the
middle of June. It may, perhaps, be
well known to you ; if so, what do
you call it?
In the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia I
find many genera, of the order Lepidop-
tera, accredited to Fabricius, which do
not appear in his Entomologia System-
atica, printed in 1793 ; nor do I know
in what work of Fabricius these genera
are to be found. This makes it ex-
tremely difficult to study the order
Lepidopt. and almost impossible for a
novice to ascertain the species which
belong to the modern genera. Is Co-
quebert's Decade a very valuable book
to the student, and can you inform me
its cost & probable utility?
I should like in ich to see Mr. Worth's
paper, when published.
If I do not intrude on your time &
patience, I hope you will allow me,
occasionally, to address you ; & in
return, to favour me with your replies.
In this way you will, from the centre of science in which you preside, shed light on an obscure individual, groping his
way without access to books, & un-
aided by instruction, but anxious for
information, & desirous to obtain it
from the best sources.
Be pleased to receive my congratula-
tions on your safe return from your late expedition, & my hopes that it will be
productive, to yourself, both of honour & reward.
I am, Sir, with great respect,
YO& humble s erv't
T. WM. HARRIS.
P. S. May I not hope to hear from
you soon ?
Dear Sir-
I avail myself of a leisure interval to
reply to your letter of the ~2nd ult.
I
was not aware that an Bgeria inhab-
ited the Cherry tree, but of
the fact
there can be no doubt as you found the
larva in the trunk and limbs of the tree. Your desc'n of this insect and that of
the specimen from the peach tree,
agree perfectly with those I have desc'd as the sexes of ^E. exitios~i. That my
two specimens are male & female I
have no doubt, but that they are sexes
of the same species I hold Mr. Worth
responsible ; they do indeed differ very much in appearance, but so also do
other sexes of identical species of the
same genus. The anus of Bgeria is
far more obviously bearded than that of
Zygasna many of which latter are




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124 PSTCHE. [AU~US~ 1891.
altogether destitute of elongated hairs
on that part, the antennae however are
widely different. I do not remember
to have met with the third sp. of ^E.
you mention ; but your description of
the Eombyx agrees perfectly with B. Jo
of authors, yet, I cannot suppose that
Profess7r Peck was unacquainted w.
that insect which is so common in na-
sure & familiar in the books ; if indeed it is not that species it is without doubt new.
Fabr. did not live to publish his Sys-
tema Gloss;itorum, but the work was
left in manuscript, & was finally publ'd, I think, by Illiger, but I have never met with it, & have therefore, with you, to
rely entirely on the Edinb. Encyc. for
his genera. Coquebert in his Decades
proposes to illustrate the works of Fabr. by figures ; his figures are good &
represent the genera as they stood at
that time, but so many divisions have
been since made that the book might
lead to error if implicitly relied upon. I have seen but one copy of this work,
& doubt much if it can be purchased in
this country. I have no idea of the
price in Europe. It is a folio vol.
& contains if I remember rightly 30
plates.
The number of the Journal A. N. S.
containing Mr. Worth's obs's on the
Peach tree destroyer will be published
about Tuesday next. I thank you for
mentioningthe name of the work in
wh. Prof. Peck published his desc's, we
have the Jour. Mass. Agric. Soc. here
& I can refer to them.
To communicate any information I
may possess to those who are in pursuit
of knowledge in Zoology, affords me, I
assure you, much gratification, I there- fore hope that you will not scruple to
command me freely, though on the
other h:md such are the nature of my
avocations I cannot promise always to
answer promptly.
SOME OF THE EARLY STAGES OF ZERENE CATENARIA. BY SAMUEL
ON September 24, 1859, I raised a
female of this species, and kept her in
confinement. On the third day she be-
gan to lay eggs and in the next two or
three days laid 259 of them. Two years
afterwards I placed a similar female, as soon as born, alone in a large box with
a sprig of sweet fern ( Comptonia as-
j5ZenifoZia), but her eggs were in all
cases dropped loose in the box. The
egg's are about 0.75 inm. in height,
H. SCUDDER.
ovato-spheroidal, truncate at base, very minutely punctured, and of a somewhat
pale pea-green color. None hatched.
The caterpillar is very common on
sweet ft-rn, and is said by Packard to
feed upon Carex pennysivanica, and
also on 'blackberry, woodwax, wild in-
digo, etc." It lives solitarily, though
imny are often found upon a single
plant, and when full grown may be fre-
quently seen extended in a straight rigid



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