Article beginning on page 124.
Psyche 6:124-125, 1891.

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124 PS YCHE. [~ug-ust 1891.
altogether destitute of elongated hairs
on that part, the antenna however are
widely different. I do not remember
to have met with the third sp. of 2E.
you mention; but your description of
the Bombyx agrees perfectly with B. Jo
of authors, yet, I cannot suppose that
Profess'r 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 Glosstitorum, but the work was
left in manuscript, & was finally publ'd, I think, by Illiger, hut 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
mentioning the 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 H. SCUDDER.
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 ( Cow@tom'a as-
ĺ´plezifoZia) but her eggs were in all
cases dropped loose in the box. The
egg's are about 0.75 mm. in height,
ovato-sph(~oida1, truncate at base, very minutely punctured, and of a somewhat
pale pea-green color. None hatched.
The caterpillar is very common on
sweet fern, and is said by Packard to
feed upon Carex pennyslvanica, 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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August 1801.1 F'>s'TTHZ?. 125
position upon a twig, supported only
by its two pairs of prolegs, the body
at an angle of about forty-five degrees
with the terminal segments. .In this
position it may remain a long time.
Its general color is a greenish lemon
yellow or straw color.
The body is largest
at the seventh abdominal segment, and
tapers very regularly and gently in each direction, the head being scarcely broader than the first thoracic segment. The head has the mouth parts white, a transverse se- ries of three black dots on the frontal triangle, and on each lobe of the head a series of four similar dots arranged in a quadrilateral. The body is marked by several longitudinal series of very delicate reddish brown lines, two on either side above and three on either side below the spiracles, those above being apparently latero-dorsal and infralateral, the latter the finer; the first thoracic segment bears a rounded dorsal shield with four black dots arranged in a quadrilateral, and on either side of each thoracic segment is a sin- gle, on that of each abdominal segment a pair, of short, transverse, black spots (one in front of and one behind the spiracle) the lower ends of which are on the stigmatal line: each of the legs has a pair of black dots and each of the prolegs two vertical series of sim- ilar dots, the hinder series of the hindmost pair forming a triangular cluster, its apex downward; the last segment has an arcuate series of four black dots, opening forward, besides a cluster of smaller ones at the ex- treme posterior margin, and the penultimate a transverse series of four dots next the pos- terior edge, two subdorsal and two stigmatal ; spiracles marked by a black dot encircled with milky white.
Length 45 mm.
The cocoon is an ovate open-meshed
net about 25 mm. long by 8 mm. in
greatest breadth, made of shining yellow silk ; the meshes are so open that the
caterpillar in making the cocoon can
thrust its head through any of them.
yet on completion the cocoon is rigid
and yields to handling less than many
compact cocoons, so stiff are the threads. It is also strengthened by the guys which attach it to the surrounding foliage.
When completed, it is much shorter
than the enclosed caterpillar, which is
obliged to lie in a cork-screw-like posi- tion until his change occurs, and then
by his contortions he contrives to eject the cast skin through the meshes of
the cocoon.
The chrysalis is of a white color, though a pale pea-green tint suffuses the thorax and appendages, especially on the ventral
side,
and the abdominal segments are edged pos- teriorly with lemon yellow, except the last two which are black. There are also some other distinctive marks : the head is covered with short curved irregular lines and dots, and has a few yellow spots on top ; the ocellar riband is black ; all the incisures of the appendages are marked with black, and the wing veins are indicated by ragged black lines now and then interrupted; there is a dorsal yellow streak on the abdomen which is bounded by short black lines and dots ; cremaster yellow except the reddish testaceous tip. Length 22 mm. : breadth 4.5 mm.
An inky tinge begins to suffuse the
body about three days before emer-
ging; it first affects the dorsuin of the thorax, then it extends to the head and
rest of the thorax except the wings
and to the ventral portion of the abdom- inal segments just succeeding the wing-
tips, and finally to nearly the whole
body. I once chanced to observe a
moth while emerging; it had thrust its
body forward out of the chrysalis skin




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126 PSYCHE. [~ugust 1891.
so as to touch the cocoon. I saw
it force its way out through one of the
meshes, which it did in a few seconds
by a series of starts, pushing itself with its legs and opening and contracting its limp wings ; it made use of any limb
as soon as it was free from its encase-
ments, and as soon as it was out of the
cocoon it took up a position where its
wings could properly hang and expand.
Most of the irnagos bred by me came
out in the third week of September;
one was in chrysalis from August 23 to
September 24, or thirty-two days. As,
according to Packard, there is but one
brood a year and eggs are laid very
soon after hatching, it is probable that winter is passed in the egg state.
Packard figures the caterpillar, but not (as he says) the pupa, in his Monograph
of the Phalaenidae. (From notes taken
in 1859 and I 861 .)
A LIST OF THE BOMBYCES FOUND IN THE ELECTRIC LIGHT GLOBES AT POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y.
BY HARRISON G. DYAR, NEW YORK.
During the summer of 1890 I made
nine visits to the electric lamps of Pough- keepsie and the following list shows the number of Bombyces that they contained
at each visit, with totals. I have in-
cluded also the names of all Bombyces
that I have found in western Dutchess
County even though not found in the
lamps in 1890. The numbers will give
a fair idea of the relative abundance of the different species. To my surprise I
found HaZesidota tessellaris the most
abundant though, judging from the
larvae, it was no more common than
usual, while CUsiocanz9a americana,
which was second in abundance, was
unusually common, doing much injury
to the wild cherry and apple trees.
I visited about one-third of the electric lights in Poughkeepsie and took al-
together 7874 specimens.
The list con-
tains 114 species. The seven most
numerous species, those comprising one
per cent or over of the total number,
were the following :-
Halesidota tessellaris Sm . Abb.
Clisiocamj5a americana Harr.
Hy$hantria var. textor Harr.
Spilosoma virginica Fabr.
CZisiocamfa disstria Hiibn.
Hyperchiria, io ~abr.
Pyrrharctz'a isabella Sm. Abb.
All the rest together (88 species)
Per cent.
34
3
1.6
r
I
I
I
I5
I was greatly assisted in making the
collections here recorded by the kind-
ness of Mr. J. H. Van Norstrand of
Poughkeepsie who takes care of the
electric lights I visited.
P




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