Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/219

Rh have figured it (Plate XX. fig. 2), it is brownish-black, with two yellow lines along the sides, and a transverse series of orange-coloured spots on each segment. From the back of each segment arises a scopiform tuft of blackish hairs, of considerable length. The cocoon is oblong, and of a yellowish-brown colour. (Plate XX. fig. 3.) This insect is pretty nearly related to one or two species of the same genus common in Britain. It seems to be very plentiful in several parts of America, particularly in Maryland, Virginia, and the vicinity of New York. Abbot states that he found the caterpillar on the cancer weed (Crotularia perfoliata?) in May, but that it is a general devourer of almost all field and garden plants and weeds. It spun up, in a thin web intermixed with its own hairs, on the 16th of May; the moth came out June 2. Others of the autumnal brood, taken in September, spun on the 18th of that month, and remained in the chrysalis till the 21st of April. The moth is less frequently seen than the caterpillar, as every one must have observed to be the case with our own tiger-moth (Arctia caja). Dr. Harris, an American entomologist, has published an account of this caterpillar in the Massachusets Agricultural Repository, under the title of "The Natural History of the Salt-marsh Caterpillar," the name by which it is generally known. It is extremely destructive to almost all kinds of grasses. "When nearly full fed," says the author alluded to, "they become very voracious, and continue eating