Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/255

Rh deeper towards the hinder margin of the wings; antennæ also reddish.

The caterpillar is dull yellowish-green, having a narrow white line along the sides, and a yellow one a little above it, and there is a small reddish spot on each segment between these lines. It eats the buds and blossoms of the Rhexia Virginica, as well as those of the tobacco plant, proving often very pernicious to the latter by destroying the main shoot. The only method employed to get rid of it is to throw hot sand or wood ashes upon the plants; sometimes also the caterpillars are picked off with the hand. Abbot found one of the individuals he kept enter the ground and spin a web there on the 25th July, and the fly came out on the 9th August. The insect is a native of Georgia, but is not common.