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CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
BY,
IDA MITCHELL ELIOT ©
AND
CAROLINE GRAY SOULE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF LIVING CATERPILLARS AND SPREAD MOTHS BY EDITH ELIOT
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1902
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THE DEVINNE PRESS —
WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE TEACHERS AND CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEGGED US TO WRITE IT
vill PREFACE
ferent from that with another brood of the same species, and that even individuals of the same brood, reared under the same conditions, may vary in size, coloring, marks, habits, and length of the larval stage of life, and therefore general statements about one might not be true of another.
It is the tendency to generalize from a small experi- ence which makes many of the popular books on this subject, as on other branches of nature work, un- trustworthy and thus of little value.
For details of structure and function we have sup- plemented our own knowledge by consulting Dr. Packard’s “Text-book of Entomology,” a book to which we owe much.
The names of the moths are those given in Dr. John B. Smith’s “ List of Lepidoptera of Boreal America,”
which is standard now, and their meanings are given .
when they could be found. All names do not have meanings. For instance, there is no appropriateness in cecropia, hyleus, astylus, and many others. Some names are made up from Greek or Latin roots and termina- tions, and some moths are simply “named for” ento- mologists, historical or mythological characters, or ealled by Indian names. One English entomologist is credited with mixing a lot of letters in a hat, drawing out a certain number, and then combining them to form names, Datana, Nadata, and Tanada being some of the names so formed. The nomenclature of moths may be considered purely arbitrary. We have accented the syllables according to the best authorities.
We have not attempted to give full details of internal structure or function, but only such as affect the rear-
PREFACE 1x
ing of larve or the treatment of eggs, pupz, or moths. Further details may be found in Packard’s “ Text- book of Entomology.”
We owe thanks to Miss Edith Eliot for her unfailing patience in photographing our caterpillars, which need more patience than any other “ sitters ” except, perhaps, birds; to Dr. A. S. Packard for the meanings of many names; to Dr. A. G. Mayer for reading the structural part for us; to Mr. D. W. Coquillett and Dr. William H. Ashmead for lists of the parasitic flies preying upon caterpillars; to the children who have brought us specimens; and to Mr. M. V. Slingerland for the use of his excellent photograph of Dryocampa rubicunda larve, larvee which we could not get when we wished to photograph them.
We have written a true book, and we hope that it may prove a helpful one. If it is not interesting, the fault is with us, not with the subject.
v)
CONTENTS
PART I THE CRAWLERY PAGE CHAPTER I.— The Crawlery; appliances; books . . 3
CHAPTER II.— Eggs, their structure, shape, ornamentation ; caterpillars, their organs, structure, molting, pupation ; defensive spines, hairs, sacs, filaments; sex, ‘ imaginal buds” .
CHAPTER III.— Various habits of pupation, cells, cocoons; changes during the pupa stage; emergence organs of pupe ; the cremaster; emergence of moths, organs and means for emergence ; various habits of emergence ; egg-laying; struc- ture of moths; defensive and attractive odors ; how to deter- mine sex .
CHAPTER IV.— Methods of taking care of eggs, larve, pupe, moths; methods of killing moths, of setting them, of mating them; cages, boxes; methods of keeping notes for life-his- tories; transportation — packing of moths, larve, pups, and
eggs.
CHAPTER V.— Hunting for eggs, larve, cocoons, pup; pro- tection by coloration, special organs, etc.; tests of life of pup in and out of cocoons; hunting for and attracting moths; times for hunting; double broods; food-plants inter- changeable ; to find food-plant of unknown larva ; how to keep
xi
17
Xl CONTENTS
PAGE
spread specimens, cocoons; to preserve caterpillars; cost of equipment ; accidents, diseases, dangers of larve, pupx, and moths; parasitic flies; plan of caterpillar, with names of lines and areas used in descriptions; plan of moths; definitions of afewterms .. 2. 6 © «9s 8 of = «0a. ep
Cuapter VI.— Parasitic flies, list of Hymenoptera and Diptera parasitic in eggs and larvee of Sphingide, Ceratocampide, and Saturniide ; lost opportunities; help from children; saw-fly larve mistaken for caterpillars; destructive caterpillars ; ancestry of insects; metamorphosis; injury to moths . . .
PART II LIFE-HISTORIES
CHAPTER VII.— Sphingide, Macroglossine — Hemaris diffinis. .
CHAPTER VIII.— Chawrocampine — Amphion nessus; Thyreus abbotii ; Deidamia inscripta ; Deilephila lineata ; Philampelus pandorus and P.achemon ; Ampelophaga cherilus ; Ampelophaga MYTON . - 5 we we ce 8 wy wel
CHAPTER IX.— Sphingine — Protoparce celeus ; Protoparce caro- lina; Sphinx kalmia ; Sphinx drupiferarum ; Sphinx gordius ; Sphinx luscitiosa ; Sphinx chersis ; Dolba hyleus ; Ceratomia amyntor ; Ceratoniaundulosa . . ». . « « «= © eee
CHAPTER X.— Smerinthine — Triptogon modesta ; —Smerinthus geminatus ; Paonias excecatus ; Paonias myops ; Paonias asty- lus; Cressoma juglandis. . . . «+ « «, = en
CHAPTER XI.— Arctiide, Arctiine — Halesidota carye ; Lipari- de — Lagoa crispata ; Limacodida — Limacodes scapha ; Noto- dontide — A patelodes torrefacta; Pheosia rimosa ; Nerice bidentata
CHAPTER XII.— Saturniide, Attacine — Samia cynthia ; Attacus promethea ; Attacus angulifera; Attacus gloveri; Attacus
56
69
78
173
CONTENTS xii PAGE
cecropia ; Saturnide, Saturniine — Actias luna; Telea poly- Eee PEI PIONCHINIA (0.0 sw ww le ww OO
CHAPTER XIII.— Ceratocampide — Eacles. imperialis ; Citheronia regalis ; Anisota stigma; Dryocamparubicunda. . . . . . 271
CHAPTER XIV.— Arctiide, Arctiine — Leucarctia acrea ; Halesi- EM Corse meee rea re sf ss be, oe we OL
CHAPTER XV.— Limacodide — Euclea cippus ; Isa inornaia . . 293
CHAPTER X VI.— Notodontide — Datana major ; Ceratocampide — LAPD Te GRIDS Oe ea
CHAPTER XVII.— Noctuina, Noctwide — Acronycla americana ; Acronycta hastulifera ; Harrisimemna trisignata. . . . . « 297
InpDEXx.— List of moths, saw-flies, and parasitic flies . . . . 301
PARP I
THE CRAWLERY
APPLIANCES, METHODS OF WORK, STRUCTURE OF MOTHS, ETC.
CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
THE CRAWLERY
\¥7 E were sitting in a room which had recently been added to the house, and for which the whole family had been suggesting names appropriate to our work on insects—or supposed to be. So far none had suited us, and we were busy, in a nameless room, clean- ing out our eaterpillar-tins and putting into them fresh leaves for the caterpillars. A sister of One of Us stood at the door watching us, and suddenly exclaimed: “Useh! I don’t see how you can do it! It makes me crawl all over just to see them.”
“Thank you!” cried the Other of Us. “Our room has its name! Since most of its occupants are crawlers and some of its visitors ‘crawl,’ it shall be the Crawl- ery!”
It has been the Crawlery for so many years now that some of the sister’s children, although well grown up, cannot remember it as anything else.
The Crawlery is full of associations. It has witnessed
3
i CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
the birth of many a rare caterpillar and its career to the “perfect insect” or to an untimely and much-la- mented death. It has witnessed our struggles, in the beginning of our work, for a knowledge which no book gave us, our experiments In ways of caring for our crawlers, our discoveries with regard to their structure and habits, our successes and our failures. It has heard —if ‘‘ walls have ears” — our desperate declara- tions that when we wrote a book about moths and caterpillars it should contain every detail of which we had felt the need and which we had had to learn by years of observation, experiment, study, and repeated failure.
The Crawlery is a most convenient and pleasant room, with a north window for our microscope and a west window in front of which is a wide shelf, used as a table when we work over our caterpillars and holding our scissors, forceps, magnifiers, and cleaning-brushes, with an empty tin or two.
Opposite are our book-shelves, which hold our work- ing library:
Gray’s “ Manual of Botany,”
Britton and Brown’s “ Illustrated Flora,” Wood’s “ Class Book of Botany,”
Newton’s “ Dictionary of Birds,” Chapman’s “ Hand-book of Birds,”
Coues’ “ Key to North American Birds,” Packard’s “ Text-book of Entomology,” Packard’s ‘ Monograph on the Bombycine Moths,” Packard’s “ Guide to the Study of Insects,” Packard’s “ Forest Insects,”
Seudder’s “ Butterflies,”
THE CRAWLERY 5
Seudder’s “ Every-day Butterflies,”
Smith’s “List of Lepidoptera of Boreal America,”
Smith’s “Sphingide,”
Beutenmiiller’s “ Descriptive Catalogue of Sphingide Found within Fifty Miles of New York,”
Beutenmiiller’s “ Descriptive Catalogue of Bombycide Found within Fifty Miles of New York,”
Edwards’ “ Bibliographical Catalogue of the Described Transformations of Lepidopterous Insects,”
Comstock’s “ Manual for the Study of Insects,”
Fernald’s “ Sphingide,”
Harris’ “ Insects Injurious to Vegetation,”
Saunders’ “ Insects Injurious to Fruits,”
Grote’s ‘“ Sphingide,”
French’s “ Butterflies of the Eastern United States,”
Dyar’s “ Classification of Lepidopterous Larve,”
Fernald’s “ Orthoptera of New England,”
Emerton’s “ Spiders,”
Hentz’s “Spiders,”
The various Reports and Bulletins of the United States Department of Agriculture, of the Agricultural De- partments of several of the States, and of Experiment Stations; the Proceedings, Transactions, and other publications of various Entomological Societies ; “ Au- thor’s Extras,” bound volumes of “ Psyche,” “The Canadian Entomologist,” “ Entomological News,” and other magazines.
On the lowest shelf are our note-books and the larger books containing the daily records of the lives of lepi- dopterous insects which we have reared from egg to Imago.
In the closet there are boxes of photographie nega- tives of our caterpillars and moths; writing-materials ;
6 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
bottles of chloroform, alcohol, naphtha, ink, and glue; boxes of rubber bands, gummed labels, insect-pins, chopped sphagnum, and pieces of serim cut to fit the different boxes; setting-boards; pipettes for applying naphtha or chloroform to doomed insects; and wooden boxes, pasteboard boxes, and empty larva-tins of all sizes and shapes, from the smallest round pill-boxes to large, square-cornered citron-boxes, all with covers which shut over their edges. The closet drawers hold balls of twine, rolls of wrapping-paper, blotting-paper, old cotton, and large pieces of netting, lace, and serim.
The room has shelves around the walls, and on these shelves stand the caterpillar-tins and insect-cages in use, while on the lower shelf, close by the door, are tumblers to put over moths and tin boxes to hold caterpillars brought by the children, to whose kindness we owe many a fine specimen. On a low set of drawers for spread specimens stands our large butter- fly cage. Under the shelves are large tin boxes for the food-plants of the caterpillars, and our tin collecting- boxes, a large pail of water for freshening the twigs collected for food, and a large waste-basket.
The Crawlery is our best working-place, because here we have every convenience, but we have done much “crawling” in other rooms and with seant supplies of everything but tin boxes, scrim, rubber bands, caterpillars, and patience. The Crawlery is not a necessity, but it is a great help and satisfaction.
Our out of doors equipment is very simple, consist- ing of small pocket tins for eggs and small caterpillars, tin pails or larger tin boxes for larger larve, our “botany-box” or “ vasculum” for the leaves we must
THE CRAWLERY fi
get to feed our voracious caterpillars, a net, and an umbrella with a rectangular “crook” at the end of the handle. The umbrella serves as a long arm to pull down boughs just out of reach. For boughs still more out of reach One of Us carries in her pocket a length of strong fish-line with a sinker on one end. By throwing this well over the bough the sinker will carry the line down on the other side, and the branch can be pulled down very easily.
Sharp eyes, patience, and accuracy are absolutely essential to our work in the Crawlery and out of doors.
Il EGGS AND CATERPILLARS
HEN we began studying moths and eaterpillars
we knew that these caterpillars hatched from eggs, ate for a time, then became pupe,—either in cocoons or out of them,— and finally emerged as moths which mated and laid eggs for another brood. The eggs were the last form which we found, but we shall begin our account of the structure and development of the moth with the egg because it is the first stage of the individual.
Most of our sphingid moths, often called hawk- moths, lay small, green, ovoid or globular eggs, and place them singly on a leaf, twig, tendril, or among flower-buds. These eggs usually become yellow or yellow-white before hatching, and have shells so trans- parent that the larvee may be seen, curled up in them, for a day or two before they eat their way out.
Most of our large satur’niids lay opaque white eggs, often stained with the brown gummy substance which fastens them to the leaf or twig, and these eggs usually turn lead-colored before hatching. Some of these moths lay their eggs in a row of two or more close together, or in two or more rows. Sometimes there are so many rows that they make a mat, as we have
8
EGGS AND CATERPILLARS 9
seen cynthia lay them, and occasionally other rows
are laid on top of the first mat, as cynthia lays them ‘sometimes but notalways. Eggs laid singly are found once in a while, but not often.
Most of our ceratocam’pids lay yellow eggs like drops of honey or amber, and place them singly or in groups on leaves or twigs. These eggs become red- der or browner before hatching, and are transparent enough to show the larvee for the last day or two.
Moth eggs vary in form, some being ovoid, others like cream-peppermints, some cylindrical, others glob- ular or hemispherical, and others shaped more like wafers than anything else. Some eggs are smooth, some ridged, and some have the surface marked like hammered silver. Some, like those of Attacus anguli- fera, are smooth except at one end, which looks like hammered silver or honeycomb. The shell is brittle and stiff with chitin, and breaks easily. At one end, usually, is the micropyle. This may be one opening or canal leading into the egg, or it may be a group of such canals. Through one of these openings the sper- matozoon enters the egg and fuses with the egg- nucleus, fertilizing the egg and giving rise to the new caterpillar.
The length of the egg-period varies from five days to four weeks, except in the case of such eggs as are laid in the summer or autumn and hatch in the follow- ing spring or summer.
When their time comes the little caterpillars nibble holes in their shells and crawl out, looking altogether too large to have lain curled up in the egg-shell. As soon as they are out of the shell the different kinds
10 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
show different habits. Some stay in one place for a long time, as if resting or growing strong; others crawl about as fast as they can; some turn around and rapidly devour the shells from which they have just come; others eat a part of the shell and eat it slowly; others take much rapid exercise before eating any of the shell; and still others crawl as far away from their shells as they can before feeding or resting. It may be nearly a day before the young caterpillars begin to eat the leaves; indeed, the tent-caterpillars often hatch before there are any leaves to eat and have to wait for them to open. All the caterpillars we have reared have been eager for water and have drunk thirstily the drops sprinkled on the leaves.
A caterpillar is made up of a head with its appen- dages, and a body divided into rings or segments, with their appendages. ‘The thoracic segments of the body are the first three behind the head. The other seg- ments are the abdominal segments. In our deserip- tions of caterpillars the “first segment” is that next the head.
The head is made up of a few segments so closely held together that they seem one piece with lines, or sutures, showing the divisions. The eyes are the sim- plest form of eyes, ocel’l, and can distinguish only light and darkness, so that caterpillars cannot be said to see at all. The mouth-parts are placed at the lower part of the head and may be watched in action very easily.
The mouth-parts of a caterpillar are the la’brum, or “upper lip,” the mandibles or true cutting jaws with which the caterpillar bites off bits of the leaf; the first pair of mazil'le, which bite the piece smaller and help
EGGS AND CATERPILLARS fal
hold it; and the second pair of maxille, which make the “under lip” and are joined in one piece. The first maxille carry the pal’pi, or feelers.
When the caterpillar comes from the egg its head is very large in proportion to its body, but the size of the head does not change until the larva molts, while the body grows so much that often the head looks small in proportion before molting-time comes. The head is stiff with chitin, and when the caterpillar molts, the old head-covering, which is called a mask, is pushed off in one piece, usually transparent, color- less, and hard as the transparent celluloid which it resembles. Caterpillars’ heads are flat, or nearly so, across the front, wider and longer than they are thick, and vary in shape from almost round to the shape of an apple-seed with the poimted end uppermost.
Among the mouth-parts of the caterpillar opens a little tube called the spinneret. This tube is the outer end of a duct which connects with the silk-glands in the abdomen. When the caterpillar wishes to spin, it forces the gummy fluid secreted by these glands to the mouth of the spinneret, applies it first to some support which shall steady the end of the thread, and then moves its head rather slowly, and the gummy fluid, constantly forced through the spinneret, hardens at once into a silken thread which the caterpillar guides to any point it chooses. As we watch the spinning it looks. as if the caterpillar were making lines with its tongue. It is not true, as was stated in one popular book, that “ whenever” the caterpillar moves its head from side to side it is spinning. It often moves the head to find another leaf or stem to which it may
12 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
crawl. Young caterpillars often spin single threads to guide them back to a starting-point or to drop from a twig without injury. |
The thoracic segments of the body have the six true legs, two on each segment. The first segment often has a horny plate across the top, or a crest of points or tubercles, and the second and third segments some- times have tubercles or marks which are more con- spicuous than those of the abdominal segments. The second and third segments have no spiracles.
The. third, fourth, fifth, and sixth abdominal seg- ments have the props or prolegs with tips, or plan’te, adapted to clinging to the stems or twigs, and the last segment has the anal props and anal plate or shield, a thick flap which covers the anus or vent. This segment is often called the anal segment.
The spir’acles, or breathing-holes, are low down on the sides, one pair on each segment, except the second and third.
The eighth abdominal segment, which is the eleventh segment of the body, often has a horn, tubercle, or other mark more conspicuous than any on the other abdominal segments, and one soon grows used to look- ing for characteristic marks on the first three and eleventh segments. The anal shield often has a mark around its edge or a peculiar arrangement of tubercles. There may be thirteen segments of the body, but the last two are usually so united as to seem one.
The anal props are very thick and have a very firm grasp.
The spiracles admit air to the tra’chea, or air-tubes, in
EGGS AND CATERPILLARS 13
the body of the caterpillar, which has no lungs and needs very little air to keep it healthy.
The skin of caterpillars is chitinous and is harder and stiffer on the segments than between them. It is called an exoskeleton, or outside skeleton. It is cast several times, most caterpillars molting four times, a few less often, and some oftener. Ten molts are the largest number so far observed in any species. Before molting, a caterpillar stays quiet, with its anal props firmly grasping its support, and does not eat for a day or two. Its head-cover, or mask, is pushed forward by the larger one which is rapidly forming beneath it, until it looks almost like a nose-bag fastened on the new head. When ready to cast the old skin the cater- pillar begins to squirm, contracting and expanding its body in a queer way; then the skin bursts near the head and the caterpillar crawls out of it, pushing the old skin back by means of this muscular contraction and expansion. A fluid has been secreted between the old skin and the new, which enables the caterpillar to push the old skin off without harming the new skin. Not only is the skin cast in molting, but the membrane lining the intestines and spiracles is cast at the same time. The mask sometimes is pushed off when the caterpillar is partly out of the old skin, sometimes is retained until the crawler has rested after the effort of molting, and once in a while declines to be removed by any efforts of the caterpillar; we have had to take it off in order to enable the larva to eat. The new head is very large after each molt, as after hatching, but the body soon grows up to it, and then becomes larger in proportion before the next molt. Many
14 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
caterpillars always eat the cast skin, with the excep- tion of the mask.
At molting-times caterpillars are delicate and should not be disturbed or touched if this can be avoided. The early molts, especially, seem to be critical periods, and more caterpillars die then than at any other time in the history of a brood indoors. Of course out of doors many are killed by birds, squirrels, mice, toads, snakes, and so forth, and stung by parasitic flies.
After the last molt the caterpillar increases in size more rapidly than before, and eats voraciously. When full grown and ready to pupate, it stops eating, stays quiet for a day or so, and then begins crawling about as if in great haste to find a suitable place in which to spin or burrow. Usually its colors change somewhat, some larve growing pink on the back, others lead- colored, while others merely grow duller and the marks look faded out. The caterpillar empties its intestine, generally before it begins the rapid erawling, and in some cases the almost fluid discharge is one of the first indications of approaching pupation.
Very few caterpillars have just the same marks and colors when they come from the egg and when they are ready to pupate. Most of them pass through one or more changes of appearance in the course of their molts, and usually are more elaborately marked in the later stages. The changes of appearance through which the individual caterpillar passes between egg and pupa are thought to show the forms through which the species has passed in the course of its evolu- tion from the original form.
The skin of a caterpillar may be smooth, rough or
EGGS AND CATERPILLARS 15
granulated, or hairy, or have tubercles or warts from
-which grow stiff spines or bristles. In a few instances
the hairs or spines are charged with a poisonous fluid secreted by glands at their base, and affect one’s hands as nettles do on slight contact. The effect is short- lived, however, and leaves no ill result. The spines of Hyperchir’ia vo and the hairs of Lago’a crispa’ta have this nettling or urticating power, and the caterpillars should be handled with care.’
Some caterpillars have little saes, like pockets, which they turn inside out with a jerk when disturbed. The saes are filled with a fluid which is in some way un- pleasant to birds and other enemies, and serves to protect the larva from them, as it is thrown out by the jerking of the sac. Others protrude fine threads or filaments which discharge a defensive fluid, which may or may not have an odor perceptible to us.
The caterpillar stage is usually a little more than five weeks for species which pass the winter as pupz or in the egg. Those which hibernate as larve have a much longer caterpillar life, though most of it is in- active. The Cos’side, or boring caterpillars, which live inside the wood of trees, have still longer lives, some of them having a larva stage of three years, it is thought. We have had broods most of which fed for
a month, then pupated, while one or two of the cater-
i !
pillars fed for a week or two longer, and we had one
brood of cynthia the greater number of which fed for thirty-seven days, while fifteen or twenty fed for one
1 The hairs of the larve of the ‘“‘brown-tailed moth,” now established
| in eastern Massachusetts, cause more lasting discomfort than those of _ any of our native caterpillars.
16 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
hundred and five days. Generally the specimens which pass through their stages with normal rapidity are more vigorous than the slower ones.
One or two writers have claimed that the sex of a caterpillar can be regulated by the amount of food given it, abundance producing females and semi-star- vation males. We have made extensive experiments with several species of caterpillars, and the result has always been that the scantly fed produced as many females, in proportion, as the full fed. The sex of the caterpillar is fixed when the caterpillar is hatched, but cannot be determined without dissection. Being im- mature, the caterpillar cannot reproduce its kind. Its organs of reproduction are not developed.
The “ whole duty” of a caterpillar is to eat and live to grow up, and some caterpillars have to eat enough to sustain life not only in the larva and pupa stages, but in the imago stage as well, for many moths have no means of taking food. Their mouth-parts are not complete or developed.
The caterpillar contains the buds which will develop into the organs of the moth or imago. Even the wings are present as little folds or pockets in the skin, and it is in the pupa stage chiefly that these imaginal buds grow into the organs which will be of use to the moth, while the props and various organs which were of use to the caterpillar but would be useless to the moth are destroyed.
Il
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH
UPATION, or the act of becoming a pupa, is out- wardly much like molting. The caterpillar stops eating, stays quiet for a day or so, empties its intestines, and crawls about rapidly in search of a place to spin its cocoon, or to burrow in the earth or in soft wood, according to the habit of its species.
Cocoons vary much in size, shape, plan of construc- tion, and texture, and different shapes, sizes, and tex- tures may be found even among the cocoons of the same species.
The larvee which burrow in the earth do so by push- ing the dirt aside with their heads, making no pile at the mouth of the burrow, but apparently packing the dirt solid as they advance. When a caterpillar has gone as far down as it wishes, it pushes the earth on all sides with its head until it has made a little cave or cell large enough to turn in, and with no passage to the air. In this cell it lies, growing shorter as the changes go on under the skin, and exuding a rather gummy fluid which is absorbed by the earth and keeps it from erumbling down on the larva, although we have never found a cell which could be taken out of the earth unbroken. We have tried many : 17
18 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
experiments with such larvee and their cells, and made many observations, because some writers call these cells “ cocoons,” but in only one cell which we have seen —and we have examined many of many species —has there been any trace of silk, and in none any cohesion of the earthen walls of the cell which justi- fies that name. Such as we have seen have been no more like cocoons than is the hole a toad makes in the earth, when it presses the walls of the hole smooth and firm by moving around in it.
Some caterpillars burrow in rotten or soft wood, even in hard wood, or into pithy stems, fastening themselves in by spinning a door of silk across the entrance-hole, while others spin loose webs of silk, like fish-nets, among the fallen leaves on the ground.
In these different shelters the caterpillars le until the pupa is formed in each, when the next change is that which shall free the pupa from the now useless larva-skin. The pupa presses against the head end of the skin, and contracts and expands its body, as in molting, until the skin bursts at the head end and is cast as in molting; it may be found in a neat little wad in the bottom of a cocoon, or longer, moist, per- haps inflated, in a cell, like a garment laid aside. In both cases the skin has burst near the head, the head itself often splitting down the median suture, and the pupa has wriggled out as a soft, green, shapeless mass, which soon settles into its pupa shape, becomes firmer and brown, and is covered with a thin varnish formed by the hardening of the fluid which was secreted be- tween the larva-skin and the pupa and enabled the pupa to push off the skin — “ greased the ways,” as it were.
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH 19
In this shape the pupa hes until its time comes to let loose the imago—the moth. But before this time comes many changes have occurred within the brown pupa-skin. All the old organs which were necessary to the crawling, voracious caterpillar, but are not needed by the moth, must be destroyed, and this destruction is accomplished by the phag’ocytes, or lymph-corpusecles. The unnecessary organs are weakened from ceasing to perform the functions which they did perform in the caterpillar, and therefore are easily destroyed by the phagocytes, while the imaginal buds which are to grow into organs needed by the moth —and such organs as perform their functions during the changes from caterpillar to moth — are too strong to be harmed by the phagocytes, and are thought to be nourished by them. Such destruction of unneeded organs occurs in the caterpillar stage as well as in the pupa stage. It is probable that when- ever a tissue or organ becomes unnecessary it is destroyed in this way. Investigations have shown that the organs of the moth are not fully developed in the pupa until it is nearly time for the moth to emerge, but the development is rapid when it once begins.
Some pupze have special organs which help emer- gence. Dryocampa rubicunda, a pupa formed under- ground, has on its abdominal segments, at almost right angles to the body, rows of spines which keep the pupa from slipping back while working its way to the surface of the earth. The pupa must come to the surface because the soft, moist moth would be unable to make its way through the earth without injury. The pupa of Cressonia juglandis has two points on the
90 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
top of its head, like little wedges, to open a way through the earth. . The pup of larvee which spin cocoons have one
means of helping the moth to emerge. Most, if not’
all, of them have one or more little hooks on the tip of the abdomen, which catch in the silk of the cocoon and hold the pupa-skin firmly in place so that the moth ean erawl out without carrying the pupa-skin too.
The triangular tip of the abdomen of the pupa is ealled the cremaster, and corresponds to the anal, also called the sur-anal, plate of the caterpillar.
The moths themselves have various means of for- cing an opening in the cocoons. Some have rough spines or knobs on their heads with which they cut the silken threads until they can push through them. Some have on their shoulders strong spines with five or six teeth, like saws, and cut their way through the cocoon with these. Others moisten the silk with a fluid secreted in the mouth, and acid enough to soften or dissolve the silk. We have often known that a moth was about to emerge by finding the end of the cocoon wet, and several times we have saved the life of the moth by opening the cocoon and taking the moth out when the fluid failed to serve its purpose, as sometimes happens. Either there is not enough of it or it lacks acid, and in this case the poor moth dies in its cocoon unless some one rescues it. We have found cocoons each containing a much-broken pupa-skin, a dead moth, and from sixty to two hundred eggs, these being laid all over the pupa-skin and the inside of the cocoon, showing that the moth had turned inside it
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH 21
and crawled all over every part of the walls, for the eggs were as carefully gummed to their support as if the moth had laid them on twigs or leaves, as she would have done had she been able to emerge from the cocoon. Of course these eggs were useless, as the moth had not mated.
The attacine moths, cecropia, glovert, promethea, and angulifera, leave one end of the outer cocoon open and spun with long filaments which cover the opening, while the end of the inner cocoon is open, but so spun that it looks like the top of a bag gathered in “ puckers” by a draw-string. There is no draw-string in the cocoon, however, and the emerging moth needs no cutter or fluid, but has only to push through the open- ing, whose “ puckers” straighten out under the pres- sure, giving ample room for the moth to crawl out. It is because the silk is so broken into short lengths that it cannot be reeled from the cocoon in threads long enough to be of any commercial value as silk.
Once free from the cocoon, or the pupa-skin, the moth serambles about until it finds a stem, stick, or the side of a box or house — something which offers a surface up which it can crawl. At this time the moth looks all head, body, and legs, with very small wings like soft, limp, moist flaps dangling from its thorax, a great contrast to the fully developed insect. Having crawled up the support as far as it wishes to go, the moth hangs by its feet with the wings down, moving its abdomen as if it were pumping fluid from it into the wings. Whether or not this pumping motion has anything to do with the expansion of the wings we have not been able to learn, but in any case the
92 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
pressure of the blood causes the wings to stretch out longer and wider, as well as thinner, until they have reached their normal size and shape, after which the moth waves them gently as if to dry them, and in a few hours they are stiff and ready for flight.
Meanwhile the moth exercises its legs, rubs its antenne, uncoils and coils its tongue, if it has one, and seems to be preparing every part for use. Later, if it is a female, it thrusts out of the end of its abdo- men the ovipositor, or egg-placer, usually a yellowish, short tube, and is ready for mating.
In confinement different species of attacine moths can be expected to emerge at regular hours of the day, and ours seldom have varied much from those hours. For instance, the large attacine moths usually have come out between seven o’clock in the morning and noon, cecropia pretty regularly between nine and ten o’clock, and promethea a little earlier. These moths do not feed, and, in our experience, the females do not fly until the need of egg-laying forces them to do so. They have a strong odor—‘“a regular menagerie smell,” it has been called — which enables the males to find them as they hang from the twigs out of doors, or the side of the cage indoors. This odor is diffused all through the day and is carried by the air to great dis- tances, so that by the time the males begin to fly some are pretty sure to be attracted by it, follow it up, fly- ing against the wind, and find the female. We our- selves have often found cecropia by following the odor. The hour of emergence cannot be said to be always the same, however, for one or two cecropias have come out in the afternoon in our boxes, and one emerged in
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH 23
the evening, and promethea at two in the afternoon. Promethea has been more regular, and the males begin to fly by three o’clock in the afternoon, and are so com- mon that one female often attracts thirty or forty males.
The sphingid moths are less to be depended upon, emerging at almost any time between dawn and mid- night. These moths have tongues, some very long ones, and fly for food, some at dusk, some later, and a few species in broad daylight. They have little or no odor perceptible to us, and we think that this is be- cause both sexes fly to the same kinds of flowers for the nectar upon which they feed, and the males meet the females in this way without needing any odor to guide them. This is a theory of ours which we have not seen advanced by others, and we give it as a theory although convinced that it is a fact.
As the whole duty of the caterpillar is to eat and live to grow up, so the whole duty of the moth is to reproduce its kind. To do this male and female must mate, and the female must lay her eggs. Moths which fly in the daytime usually mate in the sunshine, and the dusk-flying and night-flying moths mate after sun- set. In most cases they remain mated for several hours, rest quiet awhile, and then the female begins to oviposit, or lay her eggs. Egg-laying is not a short process. The eggs are growing in the body of the moth, and as they ripen they must be disposed of whether they are fertile or not. Near the end of the abdomen is the little pouch which receives the sperma- tozoa in mating, and, as an egg passes the opening of this pouch on its way to the ovipositor, the pressure forces one or more spermatozoa out of the pouch, one
24 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
enters the micropyle of the egg, and this now fertile egg is laid by the ovipositor on a twig, leaf, or other safe place to which it is fastened by a sticky fluid which is forced out of the ovipositor with it and har- dens as glue does. All moths, however, do not fasten their eggs to a support, but some drop them anywhere on the ground, or in our boxes. Such moths usually lay many eggs, and we had one Arctia which dropped in one of our boxes 1395 tiny yellow eggs, so small that it was a task to count them. We speak of eggs being laid “in a safe place,” but they are by no means always safe. Birds often find them and eat them, and some parasitic flies pierce the shells with their ovi- positors and lay their eggs inside the moth eggs. In this ease the fly-larve devour the contents of the moth eggs, and flies hatch instead of caterpillars. Egg-laying continues for several nights, the number of eggs laid being greatest on the first night, usually, and growing smaller each night after. We had one moth which laid eggs for ten nights, and this is the greatest number our records show. It sometimes happens that a captured moth will not oviposit the first night or even the second, but afterward lays a goodly number of fertile eggs.
Probably out of doors moths usually mate before the female begins ovipositing, but in confinement it often happens that males are not at hand, and the pressure of the ripest eggs compels egg-laying. In such eases mating has sometimes taken place after one or two nights of egg-laying, when males have emerged in our cages or been attracted from out of doors. Some moths are polygamous.
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH 20
Much has been written by persons who seem to think that nature is not interesting enough as it exists and that they can improve it by inventing “sweet and touching incidents” about the “ unerring instinct” and the “ mother-love” of moths, which cause them to choose for laying their eggs only such places as will be suitable for the young caterpillars to live in, and much emphasis has been laid on the care with which these motherly moths fasten their eggs securely in these suitable places. It all sounds very fine until one knows that the unmated moth is just as careful in lay- ing her unfertilized eggs which can never give any caterpillars, and that mated moths often lay their eggs on plants whose leaves the caterpillars will not eat even if starving, and sometimes on stone posts, blinds, window-shades, fences, and other things not at all suit- able for food for caterpillars. Observation will con- vinee any one that egg-laying is not a matter of volition on the part of the moth, but a function which she must perform when the eggs are ready to be laid, and that by the time her eggs are all laid — often be- fore all are laid—the moth dies, having never seen one of her offspring. It is therefore arrant nonsense to talk of the ‘“ mother-love” of a moth.
The moth, hke the caterpillar, is made up of three sections, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, with their appendages. The head carries the antenne, or feelers, which contain the organs of smell and touch and often those of hearing. It has also the mouth- parts, which may be completely developed or only partly so. If the moth feeds it has a tongue, some- times three inches long, which it thrusts into flowers,
26 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
and through whose hollow tube it sucks the nectar. The tongue is formed by the two maxille, which are grooved on the inner side and are so held together that the two grooved sides form a tube through which fluids may be sucked, for moths suck the juices of fruit, water, and the liquid of decaying animal matter, as well as nectar. The palpi lie at the outer sides of the tongue, or proboscis as it is also called. They are organs of touch, and possibly of smell also, but the use of their little sense-organs is not yet known.
The adult moth, except in one or two of the lower forms, has no mandibles.
The large, faceted eyes are easy to see, but besides these the moth has, in most cases, two ocelli on top of the head between and above the compound eyes. Ex- periments seem to show that even the compound eyes do not give the clear vision which we mean by sight, but that the moth sees moving objects without being conscious of their shape, and can see large objects as far distant as five feet, but not farther. This is higher power of vision than the caterpillar had, however, for that could distinguish only light and darkness.
The thorax is horny, carries the six legs and the four wings, has one pair of spiracles,and is covered with seales.
The legs are jointed, having five segments, and end in claws which enable the moth to cling to its support.
|
The wings are membranous sacs, with many veins |
running through them, and are more or less densely covered with scales of different shapes, sizes, and colors.
The front edge of the fore wing has a stout chiti-
\
COCOON, PUPA, AND MOTH 27
nous tube called the costa, the strongest part of the wing, as it has to meet the greatest pressure of the air.
If the two wings on the same side were not held together they would move separately and not serve their purpose as well. On the hind wing of most males there is a stiff spine which extends under the fore wing, preventing it from shpping by the hind wing. The females have a bunch of stiff bristles which serve the same purpose. This is called the fren'ulum. A few moths have no frenulum, but have instead a lobe extending backward from the hinder edge of the fore wing, and answering the same pur-. pose. This lobe is called a ju’gum. A few have neither. A hand-lens magnifying fifteen or twenty diameters will show the scales fairly well. The wings are brittle and easily broken, but it requires much destruction of wing surface to disable the moth so that it cannot fly. The wing muscles are very strong, as may be proved by holding a sphinx moth by the fore wings and feeling the force of its struggle to free itself.
The females of some moths have the wings hardly developed enough to show, and never fly, but stay near the spot where they emerge, often, laying their eggs on the cocoons from which they came.
On top of the thorax, near the head, are two small flaps, usually densely covered with scales, called the pata’gia. They seem to have no use now, but are often very ornamental. They are movable and may be erected.
The very soft abdomen is plainly divided into seg- ments, while the divisions of the thorax are not seen
28 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
plainly unless the scales are removed. The abdominal spiracles are protected by the scales, but often may be seen clearly, two on each segment. The last segment has the ovipositor of the female, or the claspers and intromittent organ of the male. The claspers are horny plates with which the male holds the abdomen of the female while mating. The intromittent organ, or ejaculatory duct, conveys the seminal fluid of the male into the sone of the female.
Some species of moths have the power of thrusting out tufts of bristles which give an odor. In some cases the odor is disagreeable to birds, mice, and bats, and serves to protect the moth from their attacks. In other cases the males only possess scent-tufts, and emit an odor which is thought to be attractive to the
females. In some species the tufts are on one pair of — the legs, in others on the abdomen and are concealed —
when not in use. Some species have on the wings large scent-glands under the scales, others protrude long filaments which give out the odor.
In many species the male and female differ in color —
or marks and may be distinguished at a glanee. In others the width of the antenne and size of the abdo- men are distinguishing marks, the wider or more pectinate antenne showing the male, while the much larger abdomen shows the female. In other cases the different forms of the frenulum will tell the sex, while the claspers always show the male. In entomological
|
writings the sign ? is used to indicate the female, and |
+ to indicate the male.
IV CARE OF EGGS, CATERPILLARS, AND MOTHS
AVING eggs, the question is how to take care of
them. Again the popular book is wrong when it states that “eggs must be kept in just the condi- tions of heat, light, and moisture in which they were found.” The best and safest way of keeping them is to put them in a little circular tin box, each kind by itself, marking the box with a name or a number which shows exactly what the eggs are, or refers to the page of the note-book which tells where they were found. The little tin boxes which country druggists use for dispensing ointments are excellent egg-boxes. Better still are the boxes made in Germany with glass in the top, because in these the eggs can be watched without opening the box. Round boxes are better than square-cornered ones because they have no chinks through which the newly hatched larvee can eseape ; and it is surprising to find how small a hole or crack is large enough for the loss of a whole brood of cater- pillars just from the egg. In a round box, then, the eggs should be put, a bit of the thinnest scrim should be laid over the top, and the cover should be shut tight. The eggs should be examined daily to note any changes of color which may occur and to prevent the
29
30 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
possibility of the hatchlings’ lacking food when they need it. This is all the care needed by eggs — except to keep the boxes out of the sunlight, as caterpillar- boxes should be kept, and in a cool place.
No parasitic flies can enter such tin boxes so closed, and this means one danger escaped by the eggs. Moreover, such boxes are too small to be likely to be seized by other members of the family for uses of their own, as once happened to an egg-box of a little girl who, when asked if her cecropia eggs had hatched, said: “I don’t know. I had them im a nice big paste- board box, and my sister Angela wanted something to pick cherries in, so she took my box, and then she ate up all the cherries and the eggs with them”!
When the caterpillars hatch they may be put into boxes a little larger than the egg-boxes — still round ones, with scrim on top, young and tender leaves in- side, and the cover shut tight over the serim. The leaf or leaves should be sprinkled, for the little crawlers lke water. It is a good plan not to move them from the egg-box until it is certain that they do not mean to eat any more shell. They never nibble the egg- shells after eating leaf-pulp.
Crowding is sure to be fatal to some of the larvee if it is allowed, even when they are small. Many small caterpillars spin threads of silk as they crawl, and if there are too many in a box the little larve become entangled in the threads or crawl over one an- other, spinning as they crawl, and so hurt one another. In the early molts they are usually most delicate and need watching, plenty of room, and no handling. As they grow larger they need more room and older
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 31
leaves, with stems or twigs to rest on, and all through the caterpillar life the leaves should be sprinkled a little.
We soon learned that leaves did not keep fresh half a day in open or pasteboard boxes; we found that bottles of water in cages or boxes were a source of danger to the caterpillars and a trouble to us; so rea- soning that plants would keep fresh a long time in closed tin boxes, and that caterpillars needed very little air, we tried the experiment of putting our sprays of leaves into water for an hour or two (as we should put flowers we meant to send away in boxes), and then putting them into our larva-tins for the caterpillars to eat, or into our big tin boxes to be kept till needed. We watched our first tins of caterpillars very closely, and soon satisfied ourselves that the crawlers certainly grew as fast and as large as when in the open air, while the leaves kept far fresher than in bottles of water in open boxes or cages. Moreover, no parasitic flies can sting them in these tins, unless they are put in with the leaves, and this chance is very small. We believe we have had one instance of it, and only one, The tin boxes protected the caterpillars from ‘mice also, while in more than one case our “ best specimen ” had fallen a victim to mice when we used cages or netted boxes. Another advantage of the use of tin boxes, outside of the Crawlery, is that no one is dis- turbed by seeing the crawlers, and there is no fear of finding caterpillars “all over the house,” for none can lift the tin covers except the big tomato- or potato- caterpillars when in boxes shallow enough to let them stand with their anal props on the bottom and their
32 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
heads against the cover. We have once had a boxful of these caterpillars escape in this way. Luckily we found them before any one else saw them, and since then we have always put them in deep boxes with a rubber band around each to hold the cover down, and have had no further trouble. Even in summer board- ing-houses and hotels no one objects to our having caterpillars kept in this way. Its safety is recognized.
Caterpillar-tins need to be cleaned out at least once a day, and it is a good plan to have an empty tin—a “saltines” box, for instance —into which the cater- pillars may be put while their box is made clean and fresh twigs or leaves are supplied. A bristle paint- brush about half an inch wide, with a handle eight or ten inches long, is a great help in cleaning the boxes. If the excrement is very soft, a little sand on the bot- tom of the box keeps it much cleaner.
The piece of scrim over the top of the box should be large enough to hang down on all sides for half an inch or more. We found that we occasionally beheaded a caterpillar, in putting on the box-cover, before we used scrim, but we have had no trouble since. With several very lively crawlers in a large box it is diffieult to be sure that all are safely out of harm’s way, especially since some species are much excited by light and crawl toward it very fast. The serim keeps them away from the edge and saves some lives.
Leaves should not be left in the tins after they begin to lose their freshness, or after the caterpillars have eaten a part and abandoned them. Fresh food and plenty of it, a few drops of water, clean tins, and no crowding are the essentials.
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 33
Diseased or feeble larvee should be put into separate tins, when they often recover.
A eaterpillar should never be removed from the leaf or twig, but the piece it is on should be replaced in the box. The larva will crawl off to a fresh twig when ready, and then will not be injured by handling. Some books tell of the toughness of the caterpillar- skin, but slight experience will show that often a very gentle pull is enough to break the skin and kill the crawler.
Abundance of food should be provided, for the eat- erpillars do not over-eat, though they eat voraciously when nearly full fed. If leaves give out, the stronger sometimes eat the weaker inhabitants of the box, and we have known some of the arctians to eat freshly formed pup of their own kind even when leaves abounded. For this reason, and also to prevent any unintentional injury, a caterpillar about to pupate should be put into a box by itself—a spinner into a pasteboard or wooden box with scrim over the top under the cover, to prevent the cocoon’s being fastened to the cover and sides of the box, and thus being torn when the box is opened. A burrowing larva may be put into an empty tin box and shut up, when in a few days the pupa will be found well formed, unless there has been some defect or disease in the larva. A few caterpil- lars, however,— Protoparce celeus, P. carolina, and Cera- tomia amyntor,— exude so much gummy,fluid that they need a little earth in the tin to absorb it, otherwise they may die instead of pupating. An inch of earth in the box is enough.
Pupz should not be handled while soft, for their
3
*
34 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
covering is very tender and easily broken, and a break, even if it does not kill the pupa, results in a deformed moth.
Pup may be kept through the winter in tin boxes filled with eut sphagnum or swamp-moss, slightly moistened. The boxes should be kept away from sun and heat, yet not in freezing temperature. They should be shut and perhaps tied to keep mice and meddlers from their contents. We like sphagnum better than. sawdust or earth, but all are used by en- tomologists, and all should be baked to kill any living creatures which might harm the pup. Earth should be sifted through a fine sieve. Pupze may be kept very successfully also on an inch or two of earth which has been baked, then moistened a little, with sphag- num laid loosely over the pupsx, and room enough al- lowed at the top for moths to spread their wings if they emerge sooner than expected.
We have wooden boxes with glass set in the lid, wire- netting bottoms, and a thin lace over the top under the glass. We lke these boxes when the time for emergence is near, for the moths can crawl up the wooden sides to the lace over the top and under the hd, and can be seen when they emerge. But such boxes are not mouse-proof. Mice, spiders, beetles, ants, birds, squirrels, snakes, toads, parasitic flies, and wasps are to be regarded as enemies to caterpillars, most of them to pup, and some of them to moths, which are often eaten by bats also. Skunks will eat pupe. Cocoons may be kept in similar boxes without earth, moss, or sawdust.
When a moth emerges it is sometimes desirable to
ieee
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 35
remove it to a cage for mating, or for developing merely, and this may be done by thrusting one’s finger under its legs from the front, and gently detaching it from the lace or wood. Usually the moth will crawl up the finger, but occasionally it will flop down on the bottom of the box and jerk its soft wings. In this ease a bit of cloth or netting may be put near its feet, and usually the moth will cling to it, when it may be lifted and put into the cage.
A little care is necessary in approaching newly emerged moths, for when disturbed they often eject a pinkish fluid which stains cloth and probably con- tains acid.
If the newly emerged moth is wanted for a speci- men it should be killed before it flies, as flying will rub off scales, but it will not make a good specimen if killed before it is perfectly dry and developed.
We began by using a cyanide-bottle to kill the few specimens we cared to keep, but we did not like the results very well and experimented with chloroform. This is good for small moths, but large ones are likely to revive later, and we have seen a moth pinned to a setting-board — not ours, we are glad to say — revive enough to lay eggs, though held fast by the pin, and with the wings fastened down by strips of paper. That condemned chloroform, and we tried naphtha, or gasolene, with excellent results. We use a glass pipette with a rubber bulb at one end, such as are sold for medicine-droppers and “fillers” for stylographic pens. Two or three charges of naphtha applied to the thorax and abdomen of the biggest moth we have killed, cecropia, kill it quickly. As soon as the moth is
36 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
dead an insect-pin should be thrust through the middle of the thorax, and the moth should be pinned to a cushion or box-edge to dry. The naphtha makes it look wet and black or discolored, but it soon evapo- rates, leaving the colors unchanged, and, we think, keeping the specimens free from museum pests.
When dry enough to be fluffy where the scales are long, the moth should be pinned to a setting-board, and the wings spread in a position which shows the markings and held in place by strips of smooth paper pinned across them. The antenne and legs must be arranged, and the abdomen supported by a bit of paper, cork, or ecard held fast by a pin. If the tongue is to be shown it must be uncoiled and extended. A pin will hold it out if the tip of the tongue is allowed to coil around it.
The setting-board is a strip of soft wood wide enough to more than hold the outspread wings, and having through the middle, lengthwise, a groove deep and wide enough to hold the body of the moth. This groove should have a thin strip of cork on the bottom for the points of the insect-pins. It is evident that boards of several sizes will be needed.
Moths should be left to dry on the setting-board for about two weeks, and then will be very brittle, need- ing most careful handling to prevent legs and antennz from breaking off. While the moths are drying it is well to put the board into a tin box or ease of some kind where they cannot be reached by any insect pest. If left uncovered, clothes-moths and buffalo-beetles may lay eggs on them, and even naphtha might not save them.
If wanted for eggs the female moth must be mated.
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 37
This is easy, if there happens to be a male out at the same time or even a day later; they have only to be put into the same cage. But sometimes no male is at hand, and one must be attracted. This may be man- aged in two ways. The female may be put in a cage _ with a wire-netting top and set out at night, or dusk, in a suitable place. For feeding moths a suitable place is one near the kind of flowers to which these moths fly for food. Any males flying there will flutter about the cage and may be caught by the watching entomologist and put into the cage, when mating will probably take place before morning. This prevents all danger from bats, owls, and early birds, but is not always convenient for the entomologist.
The other way is to tie a soft but strong string around the thorax of the moth between the fore and hind wings, and fasten the other end to a bush or tree in such wise as to give the moth a short flight and a leafy branch to hide under. If birds and bats fail to find her the result is usually suecessful. In the case of the non-feeding species, the large attacine moths for instance, there is no need of going in search of favorable places, unless one lives in a city and not near a garden or park. The moth may be tied out of the window, given a spray of leaves to conceal it from the birds, and will be almost sure to be found mated in the morning, if in a place where its species is found. It is well to rise before “ the lark,” however, when one has moths tied out, for birds, especially the English sparrows, are prying creatures and interfere with one’s best arrangements of this kind, and it is necessary to forestall them.
88 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
If mating moths are found they can be taken in the fingers, gently, and put into a cage with their feet on the netting, usually without disturbing them. In any case the female should be held, since she is the source of the egg-supply.
Sphingid moths do not remain mated as long as bombycid moths, and are not as likely to be found together in the morning. Finding a female alone does not necessarily mean that she has not mated. Most captured females will be fertile, but if one is found which is evidently fresh from the pupa it will need mating. |
Mating-cages can be made of paper or wooden boxes having four uprights extending five or six inches above the top of the box. The netting cover which forms the cage may be of wire or of lace, cut to fit, and fastened to the box by tacks or a rubber band. With wire netting it is easier to have half the top made to open to admit moths. Most moths dart downward when disturbed. With the lace or mos- quito-netting cage the edge can be pushed up enough to admit the moth. A small salt-box makes a good cage for medium-sized moths. So does a pound eandy-box, while a starch-box makes a palatial cage for the largest cecropia. Tin boxes give a moth no foothold and are not good
When a moth begins to oviposit she should be put in a paper box with lace over the top (old veils are excellent for moth-boxes). This is for the purpose of detaching the eggs easily. The lining of a paper box ean be cut off with a sharp knife, while it is difficult to remove eggs from a wooden or tin box without break- ing them.
cae eee
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 39
In order to know the lives of the crawlers, exact notes must be kept, and nothing trusted to memory. The box of eggs should be numbered to correspond with a page in the note-book. On this page should be written the date when the eggs were laid, a descrip- tion of the eggs and whether they were laid singly, in rows, in a mat, or encircling a stem; the date of hatching ; whether or not the larve ate the shells; any other habits observed; and a full description of the young caterpillars. The boxes containing the cater- pillars, as they are divided after removal from the egg-box, should be given the same number, and the note-book page should have the name as well if it is known.
The record of the caterpillars’ life should give the food-plant chosen, the dates of molts, full descriptions of the larve after each molt, habits, degree of voracity, and any other characteristics observed. It should be noted when the caterpillars stopped eating before pupation, when the spinning or burrowing began, and when the pupa cast the larva-skin, and the pupa should be fully described and then given the same number as the larva.
Where the kinds of pupe can be kept in separate boxes, each box can be numbered like the larva-tins of the species, but where several species must be kept in one box the box should -be numbered or lettered, and a list of the contents of “ Box 1” or “ Box A” en- tered in a note-book. In this case eare must be taken not to put into the same box pupe of species so similar as to make any doubt as to which moth emerges from which pupa or cocoon. For instance, if we had two
40 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
small sphingid pup which we were not able to iden- tify, we put them in different boxes, to be sure which pupa gave which moth.
Caterpillars found out of doors should be described, numbered, and recorded in the same way, unless they are so well known that no notes are needed. In recording a brood of caterpillars one box should be selected, and the dates given should be those of the first specimens to hatch, molt, pupate, ete., that the record may be true of the length of individual stages. The eggs laid the first night usually hatch first, and the first cater- pillars. usually pass through their stages normally, while those from the last eggs vary more. This may not be a recognized rule, but we have found it to be the case in many instances.
To pack living caterpillars for transportation from one place to another, a tin box of suitable size should be chosen. It should be a stout tin, not easy to bend or dent. Into this should be put as many twigs and leaves of the food-plant as it will hold, after they have been in water for an hour or two. Putting the twigs in water, like flowers, keeps their leaves fresh for the journey. The caterpillar, or caterpillars, should be put in among the twigs, and the box closed over a bit of scrim:and wrapped in heavy brown paper. There should never be any holes in the box or paper. We have sent hundreds in this way without any injury.
Living moths may be sent in tin or wooden boxes with a twig to which they can cling, but they often die by the way. We have received moths, sent in this way, apparently dead, and have had them revive when the box was opened and air admitted. Spread speci-
ee
CARE OF CATERPILLARS AND MOTHS 41
mens of dead moths should be packed in a cork-lined box, and this box put into a larger one, with loose crushed paper, excelsior, or hay between the two boxes.
Eggs may be sent in quills with the ends stopped with cotton, in hollowed cork, or in flat tin boxes. If there is any chance of their hatching on the way, tin boxes with leaves should be used. Quills sometimes break under pressure, and are not as safe as tins. A tin bean-shooter cut into two-inch lengths is better than quills, though not always as easy to get.
Pupz should be rolled separately in strips of damp cotton cloth and packed very carefully in substantial boxes.
Vv HUNTING
O the uninitiated, hunting for moths’ eggs seems like looking for a needle in a hay-mow, but it is a much more successful performance. We have often found eggs of Hyperchiria io on beach-plum ; of Actias luna and Telea polyphemus on the twigs or leaves of white birch; of Aftacus promethea on wild cherry, willow, tulip-tree; of Lagoa crispata on bayberry or beach-plum; of Limacodes scapha on bayberry; of Protoparce carolina and Protoparce celeus on tomato ; of Ampelophaga myron, Thyreus abbotii, Amphion nes- sus, and Deilephila inscripta on woodbine; of Anisota stigma and Anisota senatoria on oak; of Ceratomia undulosa on fringe-tree or lilac; of Sphinx chersis on fringe-tree, ash, or lilac; and of other species on their special food-plants. With sharp eyes, patience, and a little knowledge of where to look and for what to look, the results are sometimes very surprising, though of course the easiest way to get eggs is to have fertile egg-layers. Caterpillars also may be hunted successfully, and very little practice will increase the success. Both eggs and caterpillars are protected from notice in various ways. The sphingid eggs, found on the
“42
HUNTING 45
backs of woodbine-leaves, are of the exact shade of green shown by the leaves, and look more like small drops of water through which the leaf color shows than like anything else—to the untrained eye. The eggs of polyphemus are white with a brown band around them, of just the colors of the warts or excres- cences on white-birch twigs. The eggs of D. inscripta, laid among the flower-buds of woodbine, are so like these buds in size, shape, and color that a keen-eyed doctor, a naturalist himself, told us that he thought we had “ made a mistake for once,” and it needed a magnifier and forceps to convince him that the eggs were not buds growing in the clusters. So the young sphingid caterpillars are usually of the exact color of the leaves on which they rest and feed, but they may be traced by tiny holes through the leaf, then by ragged bites on the edges of the leaf, and as they grow larger by bare midribs and stems. Holes through the leaves are not a sure sign of caterpillars, however, for some are made by beetle-larvee, and clean semicircles cut from leaf-edges mean leaf-cutter bees. Eyes are soon trained to distinguish, and a certain unconscious knowledge comes to the caterpillar-hunter — an intui- tion, not the result of any conscious process of thought or reasoning. ‘To the eaterpillar-hunter, ‘“‘ What has been eating this bush?” is not slang, but a question of importance and great interest: Larger caterpillars are protected in different ways. Some resemble the leaves and twigs among which they live, and their colored marks curiously follow the changing colors of the maturing leaves, as in astylus and myops, which are plain green when young, but gain red marks as they
44 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
grow older and the leaves begin to show their autumnal coloring. Others have the surface color broken by lines and patches of colors unlike the leaves and twigs themselves, but resembling the effects of light and shade on them as they grow, and such larve blend with their surroundings in a marvelous way.
Some have eversible sacs which discharge an un- pleasant fluid; others have the power of protruding horns or lashes which may or may not have a disa- greeable odor. The lashes may be vibrated, as Cerwra vibrates those in its ‘ fork-tails,” and terrify some of the foes that attack the caterpillar. It is thought probable that the eaudal horns of the sphingid larve formerly held terrifying lashes, and that these have disappeared in the course of evolution, from dis- use, the horn being left in most species. Others are protected from devourers, but not from entomologists, by an unpleasant taste.
Early morning and near sunset are the best times for finding caterpillars, as many kinds hide during the day and feed at night or toward dark; still, we have found hundreds in morning walks. The excrement, or droppings, of the caterpillars often betrays their hiding-place, and we have traced many by this means.
Cocoons may be found in winter on bare branches, bush-stems, tree-trunks, fences, among leaves on the ground, or spun to all sorts of supports. These may contain parasites.
Pup may be found in cellar-window areas, among leaves on the ground, or by digging in potato- or tomato-beds, or near trees or bushes where burrowing larve have fed; but these are likely to be of stung
HUNTING 45
larve, and the most satisfactory pupe are those reared from the egg. If alive, a pupa will squirm after being held for a while in the warm hand. Co- coons cannot be tested as easily, although if there is a heavy, solid thud when the cocoon is shaken the pupa is pretty sure to be alive. If the cocoon feels hght it should be cut open, and usually will be found to con- tain a dried caterpillar, a package of small para- site cocoons, or one big parasite cocoon. Many cocoons are found with small holes through which parasites have escaped, and others torn or gnawed open by birds or mice which have feasted on the pupa. Even the dangling promethea cocoons do not always escape the birds, while the cocoons of the tent-cater- pillars are rifled by thousands. Cocoon-hunting is very profitable, however, and very interesting.
Moths may be attracted by light and caught in a net. They may be attracted by sweet flowers, or by baiting a fence-rail, stump, or post with rum and mo- lasses, rotten apples, or honey and rum. They may be caught at electric lights, or collected under them, often too much battered for specimens, but able to oviposit. The moth which gave us our life-history of Trip'togon modes’ta, by no means common, was picked up under a street are-light; its wings were too much broken to fly, but it laid us one hundred and fifty eggs.
Some collectors have great success in beating bushes and saplings for moths, but we have not found this profitable. We have found many moths resting on tree-trunks, piazza-roofs, the sides of buildings, stone walls, or fences, where daylight has overtaken them without causing them to fly to hiding-places. In
46 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
such cases they are easily caught — except the Catoc’- ale, or “under-wing moths,” so called from the bright red or yellow hind wings of many members of the family. These moths start at a shadow or slight jar and lead the pursuer a weary chase, for their fore wings are so mottled as to resemble lichens or bark with lichens on it, and make the moth almost invisible when it alights on a tree or stone, the closed fore wings covering the gay hind wings—and it alights often and suddenly.
Open sheds or carriage-shelters, the under surfaces of bridges spanning either water, roads, or tracks, and light-colored walls near electric lights, are good places for finding moths in the morning. In summer hotels, where a light burns in the white-walled halls up-stairs, with open, unscreened windows, we have taken many good and some rare moths at night. They seem to find some attraction in the intense white of the wall near the light or opposite it, and are caught very easily. This hunting must be very quiet, of course, but it is perfectly easy to do it so noiselessly that no- body knows that any one is in the hall. Lighted win- dows and screen doors often attract moths, which may be caught from the outside.
After all, the pleasantest hunt is that for eggs and caterpillars, for it includes a stroll along roads lined with a tangle of bushes and saplings; or following the low growth by the brook, or by the edges of the woods; or along the stone walls or rail fences, where wild cherry, poplar, birch, sassafras, viburnum, young ash, maple, oak, sweet-fern, blueberry, whortleberry, ink- berry, wild grape, and woodbine grow; or among the
HUNTING 47
low pines, where may be found choice sphingid larve, the big brown or green Eacles imperialis and the smaller brown Platycerura furcilla caterpillars. In the pastures by the sea the beach-plum, andromeda, bay- berry, azalea, laurel, tupelo, all have their treasures, while willows everywhere should be examined eare- fully, especially low-growing bushes and_ sapling shoots.
Near Boston May is the earliest month for profitable eaterpillar-hunting or moth-hunting, unless the last of April is very warm. Farther south the season opens earlier, but from the time it begins until cold weather ends it the procession of species never stops, though it is a bigger procession in June, July, and September, in New England, than at other times.
Many species are double-brooded, one set of eggs being laid in May or June, and the moths from these mating and ovipositing in August or September; but even of these species there are stragglers all the way between those broods. There are few species of which we should be willing to state that they appear at a certain time only. Clisiocampa americana and C. disstria we have never found as caterpillars or moths later than the middle of July, and their eggs, laid then, remain on the trees all winter, unless the creep- ers, woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, or thrifty human beings remove them.
Caterpillars full grown and crawling on the walks or eround are usually in search of a place for pupation, so no food need be provided for them; but with those found on plants, twigs of the plant should be put into the collecting-box, that the hunter may know what
48 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
kind of leaves to provide for each species he finds. Most species will eat more than one kind of leaves. Those which eat wild cherry will usually eat cultivated cherry, willow, apple, plum, poplar, and sometimes ash, pear, rose, tulip-tree, oak, box-elder, spireea, and maple. Those eating grape will eat woodbine and the Japanese woodbine, while those eating hickory will usually eat butternut and black walnut as well.
Pao'nias exceca’tus eats poplar, white birch, willow, spirea, wild cherry, hazel, apple, weigelia, oak, elm, and hickory.
We have found Te’lea polyphe’mus on maple, oak, poplar, willow, tulip-tree, ash, wild cherry, white birch, hop-hornbeam, apple, chestnut, and twice on pine and wild grape. It has been found on elm also.
The list of food-plants of Apatelo’des torrefact’a and Halesido’'ta macula’ta would contain the names of most of the common shrubs and trees, with blackberry and raspberry added.
When unknown caterpillars are brought in with no food we give them a choice of all the leaves we have at hand, and then supply those which they prefer. A little experience shows whether a new larva is likely to want leaves of trees, shrubs, vines, or of plantain, dandelion, and similar plants. No hard-and-fast rules for distinguishing can be given, for while sphingid caterpillars usually feed on trees, vines, and shrubs, some live chiefly on purslane, tomato, potato, tobacco, turnips; and while many hairy caterpillars live on plantain, dandelion, and the like, others live on hick- ory, elm, maple, and other trees. In the same way it is impossible to give one distinguishing mark for
HUNTING 49
sphingid larve and another for bombycids, or noto- dontids. Most sphingid larve have a caudal horn at some stage of their life, but there are species which do not, while the notodontid Pheo’sia rimo’sa has a eaudal horn and smooth skin, and is usually mistaken for a sphingid caterpillar by beginners.
We might say that of our sphingid larve no species has spines or is hairy when full grown, but Pheosia rimosa also is not spiny or hairy, and is not sphingid.
In this identifying caterpillars nothing helps as much as good pictures and descriptions and a little experience, unless one can go to a collection of blown specimens and compare his own with these. This, however, can seldom be done out of cities and does not help summer work.
We are often asked how to keep specimens of moths, and we usually answer that it depends upon one’s available space and the money he wishes to spend for eases. There are many kinds of cabinets, cases, and boxes at various prices, but they are not absolutely necessary for the safe-keeping of moths. We have two cigar-boxes with strips of cork on the bottom, sides, and ends, in which the same specimens have been kept for seven or eight years unharmed by any- thing. Of course they do not show off as well as in handsome white-lined cases, but they have been as safe. We have some eases also for the few specimens we care to keep, but we find more satisfaction in studying the living creatures than in collecting dead moths, however beautiful.
Empty cocoons may be kept in any kind of box, labeled.
4
50 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
Few beginners care to preserve caterpillars, and the process of making blown specimens is not attractive, though it gives better specimens than any other pro- eess. The contents of the dead caterpillar’s body must be pressed out through the anus, and a small pipe must be inserted, through which the skin is in- flated to its natural size, while the inflated skin must be baked in a little oven until it stiffens. Even this method does not give very satisfactory results. The blown larve seldom look natural, and the colors usually change, though not as much as those of speci- mens kept in aleohol. We much prefer photographs of the living caterpillar with its natural surroundings to these unreal-looking specimens, although we fully realize the value of the latter for other purposes than identification.
Cost need never deter any one from studying the lives of moths, for little apparatus is needed. <A net can be made with a circle or ellipse of stiff wire fas- tened to astick four feet long — or longer if desired — and a bag of the better quality of mosquito-netting ; better still, cotton wash-lace, which makes a net cost very little, even if the hardware-dealer makes the net- frame.
Druggists, grocers, and some confectioners gladly give tin boxes which they would otherwise throw away. Many of the house supplies come in tins also — biscuits of various kinds, broma, chocolate, spices, and some brands of coffee and tea very popular in the country. Serim costs a few cents a yard, and rubber bands are not expensive and last a long time if the | right sizes are used — large enough not to be too much ~
HUNTING 51
stretched. Cigar-boxes and starch-boxes are easy to get, and pasteboard boxes are gladly given away by stationers and dry-goods dealers. Any boy or girl who has a little knowledge of tools can make setting-boards, the wood for which costs little. Naphtha is cheap, and a pipette costs five cents. Chloroform costs more, but need not be used at all, though it is sometimes convenient. Note-books need not be expensive. Books are the expensive item of a thorough equipment, but much ean be done without many books, and the mod- ern public lbraries usually have some entomological books, to which one can go for information and for some identification.
The best part of any one’s equipment is the power of observation — quick seeing, unfailing carefulness, exactness of noticing and stating, and the patience which works hard and well, can bear the failure of its best plans and experiments, and begin over again next season with as much zest as before. Faithfulness, ac- curacy, and patience are absolutely necessary to satis- factory work of this kind.
It is always well to rear twice as many caterpillars as one expects to want, for some one always wants all that can be spared. Species common in one place may be rare in another, and it is pleasant to give treasures to those who want them. Besides, entomolo- gists often exchange pupe, eggs, and larvee, and in this way one can sometimes obtain a species that has been longed for but never found.
It is not very often that a whole brood of eater- pillars can be reared successfully. Accident, disease, parasites —if the larve were found out of doors —
52 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
usually kill some; anda margin should be allowed for such losses, for one may not have a brood of the same kind again for years. There is as much luck in moth-hunting as in fishing, and one can never be sure of the “catch” until it is at home, so it is well to make the most of a present chance.
Even when found, eaterpillars are not always “oood.” They may be stung by parasitic flies, and though they may live through pupation, the fly-larvee will devour their tissues and so destroy them, and only flies will emerge. Sometimes we find caterpillars with the white eggs of the fly on their heads or bodies. If there are not too many eggs, and if they are so fresh that the grubs have not left them and eaten their way into the caterpillar’s body, we remove them with either a knife or small forceps, and the caterpillar is safe. If the eggs give a yellow liquid when crushed by the forceps, they have not hatched. The caterpillar will squirm while under treatment, and care must be taken not to squeeze it too much or to injure its skin with the knife. Some flies pierce the skin and lay their egos inside the body of the caterpillar, and in this ease we cannot save it or even know that it is stung.
Moreover, all one’s pup may not live to give the moth. Sometimes a fungus covers them and kills them. Sometimes they dry up from some unknown cause, others in the same box being perfectly healthy. Sometimes they liquefy and decay without any appa- rent reason. ‘aking all these possibilities into con- sideration, one can hardly have too many pup or cocoons of any kind.
It is much work to care for a large supply of cater-
HUNTING 53
pillars during the weeks of their feeding-time ; it re- quires regularity, carefulness, and some exercise in keeping up the supply of leaves; but the results pay for the work, and it is all interesting.
For convenience in describing, the body of a cater- pillar is mapped out in sections, each area being given a name, and the lines separating them being named also. These lines may be only imaginary, or there may be one or more of them as actual marks on the larva.
The plan of the caterpillar shows the lines which bound these areas. It is not a drawing of any real caterpillar, but merely a map or plan of caterpillar surface and appendages on one side.
The dorsum, or dorsal area, is the back, included be- tween the subdorsal lines on the two sides (y-y). It is bisected by the dorsal line.
The lateral area is that bounded by the subdorsal (y-y) and sublateral lines (¢-z), and is bisected by the lateral line.
The stigmatal area is that between the sublateral (2-2) and substigmatal (s— 8) lines, and is bisected by the stigmatal line.
The venter, or ventral area, is that between the legs and props, extending from head to anal end, and is bisected by the ventral line. Between this area and the substigmatal line is the subventral line or area.
The most common marks on caterpillars are the dorsal line; the subdorsal line; the obliques, or oblique lines, of sphingid larve, often extending across two or three areas; the sublateral line, frequently present on the thoracic segments only; and the stig- matal line.
54 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
r-r, face-line; 1-12, body segments; 1, 2, 3, thoracic segments; 12, anal segment; 4-12, abdominal segments; f, feet or legs; p, props or prolegs ; ap, anal props; @s, anal shield or plate; o-o0, spiracles or stigmata; 1, planta, or tip of prop, the grasping tip; x-«, dorsal line; y-y, subdor- sal line; ----, lateral line; z-z, sublateral line; | 1 1, stigmatal line; s-s, substigmatal line; v-v, ventral surface; m, mandibles,
a, antenne; 0b, collar; c, costa; d, abdomen; e, base of wing; j/, apex of wing; g, anal angle of wing; h, head; 7, inner margin of wing; 0, outer margin of wing; ¢, thorax; v, discal dot.
These letters refer also to the moth on the opposite page.
HUNTING ay)
The median suture is the line down the front of the head where two segments join. It is often mentioned in descriptions.
Horns, tubercles, and warts are excrescences varying in size and shape, “ warts” being often used for the smallest and least conspicuous.
Granules, or granulations, are raised dots on the skin, giving it roughness.
Trrorations is a word used by many writers to indi- cate dots not as much raised or as rough as granules. We have called these simply raised dots.
The anal plate is also called the swr-anal or supra- anal plate or shield,and this is perhaps more descrip- tive, since it is a plate over the anus, but we have preferred the shorter word.
The parts of a moth are shown in the two figures.
Pectinate antenne are toothed like a comb, and may have teeth so long that the antenne look like feathers, and sometimes have more than one row of teeth.
Ciliate antenne have short hair-like projections from their sides,
VI PARASITES — COLLECTING
E have stated that parasitic flies prey upon the
early stages of moths, some on the eggs and some on the larve. Some of these flies are Hymenop’- tera, that is, ““membrane-winged,” with four clear wings, the fore wings being the larger. The females have ovipositors which can pierce an egg-shell or the skin of a caterpillar.
Thanks to the kindness of Dr. William H. Ashmead, we can give the names of the Hymenoptera which attack the eggs and larve of the Sphing’ide, Cerato- camp'ide, and Saturni'ide.
Tele’nomus sphing’is, Ashm., and Anasta’tus pear’- salli, Ashm., pierce the eggs and lay their own eggs in them. Of course they must be very tiny flies, or their larve could not find in these small eggs food enough to enable them to grow up, pupate, and emerge as flies, one or more in each moth egg.
We have found mats of very small eggs on leaves, and hoped for some new crawler, only to have pieces of the shells lift and tiny black flies emerge from the whole mat, not one egg being overlooked by the busy fly-mother.
56
—— ser
PARASITES—COLLECTING D7
The Hymenoptera ovipositing in or on the cater- pillars are: Thyreo'don mo'rio, Fab. Enemo'tylus macrw'rus, Linné. (This has been called O’phion macru’rus.) Enemo'tylus arc’tiew, Ashi. Ano'malon exile, Prov. Crypt'us nun'tius, Say. Cryptus extre’matus, Cress. Hemit'eles mesocho'ides, Riley MS. Hemit’eles minu’tus, Riley MS. Ameloc'tonus fugiti‘vus, Say. Micropli'tis cerato'mia, Riley. Apan'teles euchw'tes, Ashm. Apanteles empre'tiw, Ashi. Apanteles hemileu'ce, Riley. Apanteles smerin’thi, Riley. Apanteles congrega’'tus, Say. Heterog’amus famipen'nis, Cress. Heterogamus tex'anus, Cress.
To the kindness of Mr. D. W. Coquillett we owe the following names of the Diptera, or two-winged flies, which attack the Sphingide, Ceratocampide, and Sa- turnide.
The following have been obtained from the sphingid
larve: From Cerato’mia amyn’tor . . Stur/mia inquina’ta, V. L. W. Ceratomia catal/pe . see claripen'nis, Macy. Frontina french’, Will.
Exoris'ta cerato'mie, Coq.
Ceratomia undulo’sa Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W.
098 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W.
Deile’phila linea’ta = Winthe'mia quadripustula‘ta, Fabr.
Hema’ris diffi/nis . . . . Winthemia quadripustulata, Fabr. Philam’‘pelus a/chemon . Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W. Philampelus vi‘tis . . . Frontina violenta, Walk. Protopar’ce carolina . . Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W. ( Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W. Protoparce ce/leus . . 4 Sturmia distinct’/a, Wied. Winthemia quadripustulata, Fabr.
Protoparce cingula‘ta . . Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W. Protoparce jamaicen/‘sis . Sturmia distincta, Wied. Smerin’thus ceri/syi . . Frontina frenchii, Will. Sphinx cher’sis . . . - Sturmia inquinata, V. L. W.
From the ceratocampid larvee have been obtained:
From Euphorocera claripennis, Maey. Frontina frenchii, Will. Anisota virginien’sis . . Frontina frenchii, Will.
\ Frontina frenchii, Will. " U Belvo'sia bifascia'ta, Faby. { Belvosia bifasciata, Fabr. ( Frontina Frenchii, Will. Sphingicamp’a bi’color . Frontina frenchii, Will.
Aniso’ta senato/ria . .
Cithero/nia rega/lis .
Dryocamp’a rubieun’/da
From the saturniid larve:
From
| Frontina frenchii, Will.
U Winthemia quadripustulata, Fabr.
{ Exorista eu'drye, Town.
\ Frontina frenchii, Will.
Frontina frenchii, Will. Winthemia quadripustulata, Fabr,
At‘tacus cecro’pia Hyperchir’ia i/o
Te‘lea polyphe’mus .
PARASITES—COLLECTING d9
From this latter list it will be seen that each para- sitic fly preys upon more than one species of larva, also that almost every species of larva is victim- ized by more than one parasite species. It is also the ease that a larva may be attacked by both Diptera and Hymenoptera, and by more than one species of each order, and it is by no means certain that we have yet found out all the species parasitic on even the well-known caterpillars andeggs. For instance, it was only in 1895 that Apanteles congregatus, Say, a hyme- nopterous fly, was recorded as attacking Amphi’on nes’sus, though it was well known to live upon Ampe- loph’aga my’ron, Dol’ba hyle’us, Protoparce celeus, P. carolina, Sphinx plebe’ius, and Ceratomia catalpe. One of Us found the yellow cocoons set close together like a crust over the caterpillar’s back, and sent them to Dr. Ashmead to be identified, for we had never happened to find them on any caterpillar before. Dr. Ashmead wrote that Amphion nessus was “ anew host” for this fly.
It is a good plan to kill any flies that emerge from a pupa or larva, and keep a specimen, keeping also a record of the name of its host. This record may be numbered like the specimen. <A beginner cannot know whether he has an old species or a new one, a common host or one not known as host of that fly, and some one may want that information some day. We have learned by sad experience that some of the most valuable chances come to those who do not know enough to appreciate their value and therefore fail to benefit by them.
Very early in our work, when we were studying
60 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
everything that came in our way without realizing how much more we could really learn by confining our study to narrower limits, One of Us brought in an alder-branch nearly covered with cottony aphids. It was placed in the corner of a room occupied by the Other of Us,—for we were then in a country hotel,— and the abundance of fresh material gathered every day made us leave this untouched. One day the Other of Us said: “Do look at my pinecushion! It is all covered with funny little cases like aces of clubs, only not black.”. Examination showed them to be chrysa- lids, and many more were found on the walls, curtains, and doors. They were collected and put into a box to be kept until the following spring, but on opening the box a few weeks later the butterflies were found dead, having emerged in time for a second brood. We did not know about second broods then. We knew that the caterpillars which made the chrysalids must have come from the alder-bough, as there was no other source from which they could have come. We threw away all the butterflies but three or four, and when we next went to see an entomologist we took these to learn their names, for our books gave nothing by which we could identify them. He was enthusiastic over “the rare Fenis’eca tarquin’ius,” and asked all sorts of questions about them, begging the butterflies fora museum. Of course we were very sorry that we had not known their value and kept more of them, but we were far more sorry a few years later when an entomologist published the life-history of the species, showing that the little caterpillars fed wholly upon the larve of the cottony aphids, a most unusual
.
; !
|
PARASITES—COLLECTING 61
departure from the vegetable diet of the order. Then we thought how we had had the whole story in our room, and might have discovered it all for ourselves if we had only known enough. This is a butterfly story, but we give it to show the importance of thorough, careful observation, and of keeping records and speci- mens of which one may not know the worth at the time.
Another lost chance was when one of our village acquaintances found a male and female Triptogon modesta on a fence, and chloroformed them at once. The female revived after being set on the board, and, in spite of a pin through her thorax, laid several eggs. This also was in the very early days of our study, when we were so much absorbed in getting the names of all the moths we found that we did not think of the value of these eggs until it was too late, and we were sorry enough that we lost our chance of getting the first description of the larve, much less known then than now, and by no means common now. We might have had the whole history from the eggs thrown away by the finder of the moths. These were the very first moth eggs we ever saw, and would have given us a “previously untold story” if we had but known enough to save them. It was twenty years be- fore we had another chance of rearing TZ. modesta from the egg.
In almost every country or seaside place the chil- dren can be interested very easily in bringing moths, cocoons, and caterpillars to any one whom they know to want them. The village children are usually glad of a chance to earn a few cents every day or two, and the city children are eager to find all the wonders of
62 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
“the country” and to know “all about” them. They make capital hunters, too, and to their sharp eyes we owe many valuable caterpillars and moths. It makes their summer much more interesting to look for speci- mens, and them much happier to feel that they are really helping some one. At first they will doubtless bring in creatures one does not care to have, the saw- fly larva, Cim’bex america’na, for instance, which abounds on elm, willow, hazel, alder, and other plants. It may be white, yellow, salmon-pink, or green, with two narrow black dorsal lines and twenty-two legs. It belongs to the hymenopterous family TYenthre- din'ide, a family whose larvee do much damage by de- foliating trees of various kinds. The flies are called saw-flies, because the abdomen of the female has a pair of saws with which she saws slits in the stems or leaves of plants, and in the slits lays her eggs. The larvee are not true caterpillars, but have a pair of pro- legs on almost every segment of the abdomen, while but one family of true caterpillars has more than ten abdominal props. Another species of saw-fly lives in large numbers on the pine, another on the white birch, another on the rose, another on the currant, and usu- ally there are so many together that a child thinks the group a great treasure, and is disappointed when it is not received with enthusiasm. Some of the saw-fly larve have an unpleasant habit of discharging from glands on their sides a disagreeable, slimy fluid. This is their protection from birds and squirrels.
Great numbers of “ woolly bears” will be brought in late in the season. Those with white, pale yellow, and fox-colored hairs will probably spin in the autumn, but
Re ES 0 ME att mae
oe
Cimbex americana (saw-fly).
“(BATE AP-MES) SUsceyryep Puma, )
PARASITES—COLLECTING 63
the “ double-enders ” — those fox-colored in the middle and black at both ends — hibernate, that is, pass the winter in a torpid or semi-torpid state, and crawl out in early spring to eat a little new grass, dandelion, or plantain before spinning their cocoons. These are not worth trying to keep over the winter unless one has a room with even temperature and can have sods ina box. In this case the caterpillars will hide in the turf and may survive the winter, but it is difficult to keep hibernating larve in ordinary heated rooms, or in cel- lars to which many persons have access.
Whenever gipsy-moth caterpillars, apple-tree tent- caterpillars, or forest tent-caterpillars are brought in. or the “ fall web” caterpillars or moths, they should be destroyed, for they do much damage to the trees and increase rapidly. This is true of the tussock-caterpil- lars also, and of the “ canker-worms,” which drop down by silken threads and hang squirming just on a level with one’s face. These are all well known and easy to identify by books and museum specimens. When nei- ther books nor collections can be consulted, the nearest entomologist, the State Entomologist, or the head of the Division of Entomology of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture, is usually glad to give any infor-
mation possible, and even beginners may be able to repay the kindness by supplying specimens wanted for some special purpose, or facts about some species oc- urring in their neighborhood. There are more kinds, or species, of insects than of any other class of the animal kingdom, and they are thought to make up four fifths of that kingdom. They are supposed to have developed from annelid
64 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
worms. That is, ages ago some of these worms varied from the regular type, for one of the natural laws is that there is a tendency to vary among individuals of the same species and even of the same brood. As the conditions of the earth’s surface and climate changed, those worms which had varied in ways which made them fittest to bear these changes survived, while the least fit died. No one can tell how many species have become extinct in this way.
The changed conditions caused variations in the creatures, as well as made them necessary, and as changes were constantly occurring, though they were slow, new species were developed from the old forms un- til they reached the stages in which we see them to-day, stages of much higher development than the worms possess, with more complicated structure and far higher powers. Therefore, though a caterpillar is a crawling creature, and though some dictionaries allow all crawl- ing creatures to be called worms, it is not fair or just to call them so. Names like “ canker-worm,” “ fall web-worm,” and “silk-worm” have become a part of our language, and will be used by all sorts of writers and in talking, but we need not perpetuate the mis- take and the injustice of calling all caterpillars “ worms.”
The changes from caterpillar to pupa and from pupa to moth are called metamorphoses, and are thought to have been caused originally by changes of food, of surroundings, and of hot and cold seasons, as well as by other changing conditions.
In order to continue the life of the species, moths
must survive the winter in some form not requiring .
~~
a eee
PARASITES—COLLECTING 65
food. Many species pass the winter as eggs, more as torpid or semi-torpid larvae, most as pupx, and probably some as perfect moths, though we have not found hi- bernating moths in the imago state. Cold seems to have no ill effect on them. The eggs on twigs or trunks are not harmed even when covered by the ice of a sleet-storm. The caterpillars in the crevice of a wall, under dry leaves, in the chinks of the bark, or spun up in a leaf are not killed by cold many degrees below zero. The pupe in the ground are not hurt though the earth freeze hard to the depth of several feet below their cells, and the pup in cocoons or among fallen leaves are equally unharmed by cold.
Frail as the moth imago seems, it can bear much injury without apparent discomfort, certainly without any sign of pain. In flying about, moths often break large pieces from their wings, but the loss of more than half of each wing does not seem to harm them at all. As long as enough wing is left to enable them to fly, they seem comfortable and can live unless chased by birds or bats. In this case the lack of speed caused
_by the lessened wing-power may prove fatal.
y
The loss of the antenne is the greatest loss that can
befall a moth except loss of life. Without antenne ; he moth has no guide to its food-flowers, its mate, or
—.
the proper tree or plant on which to lay its eggs. It
ems to have lost its connection with the world and
is very helpless. Legs are essential for clinging to a
Support when at rest, but five of the six may be lost without making the moth helpless, for we have seen a sphingid moth, whose legs on one side had been broken
off in some way, cling by the fore leg of the other side ine
66 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
and the ovipositor, which she curled around a support. Probably the male would use his claspers in such ease, unless he could still cling by one leg, which seems possible. This we have not seen, however.
We have not attempted to give histories of the loopers, or geometrid caterpillars, or of many noctuids. They are less noticeable, unless, indeed, they occur in great numbers, and most of them are less beautiful and interesting to beginners, than the Sphingide, Cera- tocampide, and Saturnide.
It is to species of these families that the rug-weavers of the East turned for suggestions of the beautiful colors and combinations of colors they used in their rugs before the cheap aniline dyes reached them.
PART II
LIFE-HISTORIES
OF FORTY-THREE SPECIES, WITH ILLUSTRA- TIONS OF THE CATERPILLAR AND MOTH OF EACH AND OF A FEW SPECIES DESCRIBED. ALL OF THESE HAVE A WIDE RANGE IN THE UNITED STATES.
“
VII
A SPHINGID 44 BRANCH, ARTHROPODA (‘ jointed-footed”). CLASS, HEXAP’ ODA (‘‘six-footed”’: insects). ORDER, LEPIDOPTERA (‘‘scaly-winged”). SUBORDER, HETEROC’ERA (‘‘ other-horned,” i.e., antenne# not knobbed
at the tip, like butterflies). FAMILY, SPHINGID# (‘sphinx like”).
HE moths of this family are often mistaken for humming-birds, when poised before flowers into whose deep nectaries they have thrust their long, slender tongues. They are called “ humming-bird moths,” and still oftener “‘ hawk-moths,” because they fly so swiftly and strongly. Some species fly at night, some at dusk, others in hot sunshine at noonday. They have long, narrow fore wings, short hind wings, and long, tapering abdomens. Their antenne are long and slender, not feather-like as are those of the large spinning-moths, and not clubbed at the tip like those of most butterflies. The antenne of the males are ciliate, while those of the females are not; both are fusiform. They are rarely pectinate. The caterpillars have short hairs, or sete, when very young, but are smooth or granulated when full
grown. Most species have a caudal horn at some stage 69
70 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
of their life, though some have the horn replaced by a tubercle in the later molts, and others show no sign of horn or tubercle. Most of these larvee have seven oblique lines on each side of the body, though the number may vary from four to ten.
Some of the caterpillars burrow in the earth to pu- pate, others spin very slight cocoons between leaves on the ground. We find no reeord of any which spins a dense cocoon. Most of the very young caterpillars
spin a thread of silk as they crawl, probably as a guide, —
and many drop from the tree by this thread when disturbed.
—
Hemaris diftinis.
—
HEMARIS DIFFINIS
SUBFAMILY, MACROGLOSSINZ (‘‘long tongues”’). GENUS, HEMA’RIS (‘‘ bloody-nose”). SPECIES, DIFFI NIS (“unlike”).
Our first sight of this species was when a box of the young caterpillars arrived by mail from Missouri, with a few bare twigs which we could not identify. Fortunately, the name of the crawlers was on the box, and One of Us promptly ran out to a bush of Lonicera tartarica, Tatarian honeysuckle, and brought in small sprays of leaves, which the hungry caterpillars began eating with every appearance of satisfaction. Other twigs were put in water to be ready when the leaves were gone from these, and then we sat down to ex- amine our new treasures comfortably.
They were a little over half an inch long, pale green on the dorsum, or back, darker green on the sides, and thickly sprinkled with white granules. Each had three longitudinal brown stripes on the venter, or under side, and the legs and props were almost white, barred with dark brown. On the first segment and _ projecting over the head was a transverse double row of yellow granules larger than those of the body. On the eleventh segment was a caudal horn, long, slender,
granulated, bright yellow at the base and blue-black 71
72 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
at the tip. The spiracles were deep blue-black, ringed with palest blue. The anal shield had a yellow tip. There were no oblique lines on the sides such as many sphingid larve have. The spiracles were very con- spicuous.
They were very hungry creatures, and there were a good many of them, and before they were full fed they ate every leaf of the Tatarian honeysuckle, and began on a bush of Symphoricarpos racemosus, the snowberry-bush, which is almost always found in old gardens or by the front door of very old farm-houses. They were not delicate at all, nor were any of them stung, so we reared the whole boxful, though nearly half of them lost the slender blue-black tips of their
caudal horns at some stage of their life. They reached —
us in May, and on the 16th of June they stopped eat- ing, emptied their intestines, and began hurrying around the tins, growing purplish on their backs and duller in color all over. When they tired of crawling, or spinning-time had come, each spun a slight web, holding leaves together, or fastening them to the bot- tom of the tin.
On the 18th the pup cast the caterpillar-skin, and the next day they had become brown, with darker wing-cases. They were about an inch long, or a trifle longer, and rather slender, with no raised tongue-case.
We put all the pup in a box with glass set in the lid, giving them chopped sphagnum for bedding, and devoted ourselves to crawlers who were feeding vora- ciously, as is the habit of caterpillars. We did not think of their emerging soon, but after some years of work with crawlers one seems to acquire an instinet —
HEMARIS DIFFINIS 75
about them, and to feel when any change is about to take place. So it happened that the Other of Us was up at dawn looking at the diffinis box, and saw the first moth emerge. What a surprise it was, too! The Hemaris moths are often called the “ clear-winged” moths because their wings are transparent, except near the body and a band on the edge; but this moth, and that which quickly followed it up the side of the bex, had black wings when they developed enough to be seen clearly. Another and another emerged, and then two or three at once, but all had the dark wings. It was a puzzle. Every other point agreed with the de- seriptions of diffinis. It was a puzzle which we had to leave unsolved for the time, for there was much to do among our boxes, and leaves were to be brought in from the woods and fields.
It was afternoon before we had another look at the moths, and they were flying about the box in a most lively manner, as they are day-flying moths, feeding at flowers in the hottest sunshine. Then the problem was solved. They were normal specimens in every respect, for the motion of flying had removed all the dark scales from the parts of the wings which should be transparent, and only the shining membrane was to be seen there. Thus we learned one fact which no book had told us—that the wings of H. diffinis were seale-covered until flying rubbed off the scales in cer- tain parts.
They were very pretty moths. The outer wing- borders were black, while those of the hind wings, next the body, were marked with red. The upper part of the head and thorax was olive-yellow, and the sides
74 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
were yellow, while the abdomen was like the thorax at its base, where it joined the thorax, but black else- where except the last two segments, which were clear yellow, as was the under side of the thorax. The legs were black.
The next day more emerged, and we killed a few with scales and without, to photograph, but we could not get one with all the scales on because the least breath or touch detached them. Still our photograph gives an idea of the newly emerged moths as well as of those which have flown.
Finding that the moths emerged so early in the sea- son, we planned to have a second brood, so put several in a cage, giving them flowers and drops of honey to feed on. There was no feeding, however, and finally it occurred to One of Us that the moths usually fed in the bright sunlight, so she moved the box into a sunny place, leaving one end in shade to give coolness if de- sired. In less than five minutes the moths were feed- ing, and in a short time two mated.
In four days the female diffinis laid two hundred and eight eggs, then died. The male had been set free after mating. Seven days later the first eggs hatched, giving little caterpillars about an eighth of an inch long, pale yellow in color, with a white collar, or transverse raised band, on the first segment, and short, colorless hairs, or sete, all over. The caudal horn was yellow, then turned gray, then black.
These little caterpillars paid no attention to their shells, but went to the leaves and began eating at once. They drank eagerly. Three days later they molted, coming out a quarter of an inch long, green
Hemaris diffinis.
HEMARIS DIFFINIS 79
above, almost purple beneath, with a crest of yellow on the first segment. The caudal horn was long, rough, blue-black, with yellow on the sides of its base. The legs, props, and spiracles were blue-black. The head was round and yellow, with pink mouth-parts. Three days later they molted again, much as before, but the head was greener, no hairs were to be seen, and the substigmatal ridge was yellower. This is the ridge below the spiracles, or stigmata. Three days later they molted for the third time, and were de- eidedly larger. Nine of them changed to a soft choe- olate-brown color, with a golden crest on the first segment, and yellow at the base of the blue-black horn. The others were pale green on the dorsum, yellow-green on the sides, and brown on the venter, with longitudinal darker brown stripes, and had no ridge. Two, which molted later, had black heads, hight brown backs, and dark brown sides and venters; and one was golden-yellow on the dorsum and brown elsewhere. All were granulated with yellow-white, and all had blue-black horns with yellow at the base.
The fourth molt was four days later, and most of the caterpillars were colored as before, except that their legs and props were light, barred with brownish black, and the spiracles were blue-black, with a white dot at top and bottom, and a white circle around each spiracle. The spiracles looked like the port-holes of an ocean steamer. One brown caterpillar came out with the head almost black and the body deep brown granulated with white, except the first and last seg- ments, which were bright orange with orange granules. The legs, props, and venter were deep brown.
76 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
Six days later the first ones turned purplish on the dorsum, and prepared to spin. They were from an inch and three quarters to two inches long. The next day they spun, and four days later they pupated, having passed from egg to pupa in twenty-four days.
The pupz were slender, the wing-covers being darker brown than the body. The tongue-case was not raised.
To feed this last brood we had to forage in our neighbor’s garden and beg for snowberry-twigs, for our bush was entirely stripped; but neighbors are very kind when we need help of this sort, and we had the satisfaction of carrying the family through two generations, and starting a third through eggs from the moths which emerged the next spring. These egos we gave away, however, being content with two generations and wishing to give the snowberry- and honeysuckle-bushes time to recover from their defolia- tion. It is not often that we have to strip a bush or tree so completely, but it did no harm as far as we could learn.
Mr. Beutenmiiller gives the range of diffinis as “from Canada to Florida, and westward to Missouri and Iowa.” The only place where we have seen the moths flying in numbers is Wonalancet, among the White Mountains, where we saw scores of them feeding at the large pasture-thistles, and so overcome by the fragrance or the nectar that they were easily caught with a small box and its cover, sometimes two or three being shut in at one scoop. They flew at midday and looked like large and beautiful bees as they hovered over the thistles, thrusting their long tongues far
eT
a a
HEMARIS DIFFINIS 77
down into the purple-pink flower-heads, and not giving up their places to real bees, butterflies, beetles, or even the swiftly darting humming-birds which came flash- ing in among the thistles’ visitors, startling the butter- flies and sending the bees humming away to other thistles. In our experience there is no place like an old hillside pasture in August with a good growth of pasture-thistles for giving great variety of insects and for good views of humming-birds.
Until very lately the spring brood of H. diffinis was thought to be a different species and was called H. te- nuis, but Mr. Ellison A. Smyth, Jr., has proved that the two are the same species by rearing diffinis in July from eggs of tenuis laid in May, and rearing tenuis from eggs of diffinis.
Hemaris thysbe, next of kin to H. diffinis, was also found feeding at the thistles, and was caught in the same easy way.
Vill SUBFAMILY CH@ROCAMPINZ
HIS subfamily (the “hog-caterpillars”) is named from a fancied resemblance of the eaterpillars to pigs.
Many of the species have the third and fourth seg- ments larger than the others, and some draw the head and first segment into the second, telescope fashion, when at rest and when frightened.
The moths have large, prominent heads, and fly very swiftly. They are very strong, and have a habit of darting downward when startled; so the net should always be placed beneath them and swung upward to catch them.
~ — a wi wl = Sf = a i = ee ~ = os A 1 a coke sh) p= 5
ee D
Amphion nessus.
AMPHION NESSUS
GENUS, AMPHI'ON (a son of Zeus). SPECIES, NESSUS (one of the centaurs).
We found on the under side of woodbine-leaves some sphingid eggs with a luster like mother-of-pearl, and having colors more or less iridescent. Through the shell we could see the yellowish larva lying curled up, so we knew that the eggs would hatch very soon.
The next day the pale yellow caterpillars ate their way out, and began to eat and drink —or rather to drink and then to eat—at once. Their heads were large and flat, and had a fold of yellower skin just behind them, not a crest on the first segment, but a fold of skin. The caudal horn was long, slender, straight, and ended in a square-cut tip with a seta at each end. These sete projected almost horizontally on each side of the horn, giving it a branched look. The fourth segment was slightly swollen.
The caterpillars ate holes through the leaves and grew a little greener after eating.
Six days later they molted, coming out three times as long as when they hatched, a great increase of size for the first molt. The head was blue-green, with faint white face-lines, flat, and held almost horizontal. The legs and props were blue-green like the body,
79
80 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
which was unmarked. The caudal horn was brown at base, black above, and very rough with white sete, and was held bent backward in a line with the dorsum.
Seven days later the second molt took place. The head was blue-green, with faint white face-lines. The body was blue-green, with transverse lines of white granules, white subdorsal lines, and a dark green dor- sal line. There was a faint suggestion of white obliques. The legs and props were green. The horn was brown- ish white at base, black above, and rough with white sete.
In this molt some larve had pink horns, paler be- — hind. All the caudal horns were shorter than before.
The third molt followed in four days. The head was very round, granulated with darker green on the sides, but with no granules between the yellow-white, opaque face-lines.
The body was green, with yellow-white granules. The subdorsal lines were yellow-white, edged above with darker green, and the dorsal line was of the same darker green. The obliques were yellow, edged with green above. On the thoracic segments were faint indications of lateral and stigmatal lines of yellow- white. The swelling of the fourth segment was more marked, and the third segment was slightly larger than the first or second. The anal shield was edged with yellow-white. The legs and anal props were green; the abdominal props green, with a pink band above the plante. The horn was short, stout, triangular, red above and pink behind, with a deep red line from the end of the dorsal line to the tip of the horn. .
In this stage several of the larve came out brown
AMPHION NESSUS 81
instead of green, and one was of a clear wine-color, with the obliques and other body-lines of pink edged above with deep claret-color. The granules and face- lines were pale yellow. Some larve had ten obliques. Some had no pink on the abdominal props.
All were more sluggish in this stage and the next than any other larve we have reared, and were most easily detached from the vine, the shghtest jar suffi- cing to send them to the ground. If removed from a twig and laid on their backs, they did not even turn over until they were hungry and had to crawl to a leaf to feed.
The fourth molt followed four days later. All came out pale brown granulated with yellow, each granule having a black dot in its center. The head was bi- lobed, dark brown between the yellow face-lines, rough with black and a few pale yellow granules. Outside of the face-lines the granules were yellow. The body was dotted with black. On the thoracic segments were black dorsal, subdorsal, lateral, and stigmatal lines, the dorsal line being represented on the abdominal segments by a black patch at the juncture of every two segments. The obliques were distinct and almost black —nine in most instances, ten in a few. The horn was very short, stout, and rough. The spiracles were black, witha yellow dot at each end, and encircled * a yellow line. The legs and props were brown, the anal props being darker than the others, and the anal -hield was of this darker brown, with a dorsal line ex- vending to its tip and a yellow edge. The third and fourth segments were slightly swollen — just enough
to be out of focus in the photograph. 6
82 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
In this stage the larve twitched from side to side when disturbed, but were otherwise very sluggish.
Ten days later the granules had disappeared and all the marks had grown paler. Then the caterpillars looked grayish and dusty on the dorsum, and stopped eating. They were three inches long, a few being shorter.
Some spun a few threads fastening leaves to the tin; others merely lay on the bottom of the tin, and pu- pated three days later.
The pup were an inch and a half long, very dark brown, and coffee-colored between the abdominal seg- -ments, which were pitted. The wing-covers were rough. There was a slightly pointed tubercle at the base of each antenna. The anal hook was long, slender, and bifid at the tip.
Out of doors these caterpillars are easy prey for parasitic flies, and among their most common enemies is Apanteles congregatus, whose yellow cocoons form a sort of crust over the body of the caterpillar.
The moths are found “from Canada to Florida, and westward to Lowa,” according to Mr. Beutenmiiller. They fly by day as well as in the evening. They are common in eastern Massachusetts and western Ver- mont, but Mr. Beutenmiiller finds them not common near New York.
We have found the eggs in May and June, an larvee from June till October, showing that eggs m be laid later than June.
The food-plants given are grape, woodbine, a Epilobium; bat we have not chanced to find larve or eggs on the last.
‘
. i
AMPHION NESSUS 83
The moths are in shades of rich brown and yellow, the abdomen being of deep, velvety brown, with a band of canary-yellow between the fourth and fifth seg- ments, and white tufts on the under side. The wings are somewhat “eut out,” but not enough to call them notched. The antenne are simple in the female, cili- ate on the under side in the male, and hooked at the end. The tongue is about an inch long.
The moths feed at phlox, sweet-william, verbenas, and such flowers, and lay their eggs at dusk.
THYREUS ABBOTII
GENUS, THyY’REUS (a large shield, the tubercle of the larva). SPECIES, ABBOTII (Abbot’s). :
This is one of the most common sphingid eaterpil- lars, feeding on grape and woodbine, and we had had many half-grown specimens which we reared success- fully before we had eggs to give us the life-history. We knew a woodbine on which we had often found these crawlers and Deidamia wmscripta, and to this we went for eggs of both. On June 8 we found plenty of mscripta eggs and a few which might be abboti or myron. We marked several sprays of vine having no eges on them, and went the next day to examine them. It was probable that we should find eggs, because a moth usually oviposits for several successive nights in the same neighborhood, and this woodbine covered a long wall, giving ample room for many larvee to féed in comfort. It was therefore not a surprise to find several eggs on the marked sprays, and we boxed them with the satisfaction of having the exact date of their laying. The eggs were bright apple-green, almost globular, and finely shagreened, as seen under a lens. They were on the upper side of the leaves, each on a
spray by itself, except one egg which was on a tendril |!
just over a leaf. In seven days they hatched. 84
r
THYREUS ABBOTIL 85
The caterpillars were very small and pale pinkish green, with slender, dark caudal horns. They ate a little of their egg-shells, but ate nothing else until the third day, when they began to eat holes in wood- bine-leaves. They grew glassy green after eating.
Six days later they molted and came out very dif- ferent, being covered with a white “bloom” which concealed the pale green color almost entirely. The legs and props were green, and the horn was like a slender shaft set on a mound, the mound being yellow, with a black patch in front, and the shaft white. The crawlers ate their cast skins and were very easily dis- turbed, twitching and jerking their bodies violently when the leaves were touched.
In three days the second molt took place, the only changes being increased size, the dark color which made the spiracles noticeable, and the loss of the cau- dal horn. In its place was the yellow mound, with a black semicircle around the base in front.
Five days later they molted for the third time, and changed even more than before. Part had the head brown, of a pale “ ashes-of-roses” shade, with wide dark brown bands from the mouth-parts over the face and head. These bands continued over the thoracic segments, diminishing in size after the first segment. The body was of ashes-of-roses lined with darker brown, and looked like snake-skin, especially when examined with a lens. The dorsal line was dark; the dorsum darker than the sides, with a wavy, light subdorsal line. The venter and legs were pink-brown. The props were ashes-of-roses banded with dark brown, except the anal props, which were marked like
86 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
snake-skin, as was the anal shield. In place of the caudal “ mound” was a very large, round tubercle of three shades of brown with a black center, giving the effect of a bright eye.
The other caterpillars were strikingly different. They had bright leaf-green patches on the head, one large green patch on the dorsum of each segment, one on the substigmatal region of each segment, and three or four on the pink-brown venter. These patches were marked off by browns of the same shades as those of the other — form of coloring, and the caudal tubercles were alike in both forms. The anal shield and props of the green form had patches of green.
The caterpillars fed for five days, growing large very rapidly; then the green ones grew dingy and stopped eating, and the brown ones grew lead-colored on the dorsum; and both kinds curled up in horse- shoe shape, grew moist, and pupated six days later, with no fourth molt. Probably this omission of a molt was due to the intense heat, for several species of caterpillars feeding at this time molted but three times before pupating.
The caterpillars were very excitable and reared the | anal end in the air, brandishing it and vibrating it like a snake’s head, which it really resembled enough to frighten birds. We have seen orioles try to pick up an abbotii larva on our woodbine, and dart away with a scream when it lifted its snake-like anal end with the tubercle shining like aneye. The caterpillars make a squeaking noise; how they make it we do not know. |
The pup were an inch and an eighth long, not
THYREUS ABBOTII 87
stout or slender, dark brown, smooth, with no raised tongue-case. Out of doors they are formed under- ground.
Usually abbotii has passed through four molts before pupation, in our experience, and has had a larval life of at least four weeks instead of but twenty-five days.
The moth flies just before and just after sunset. Its head and thorax are chocolate-brown, with a_ blue- gray sheen sometimes; the abdomen is blackish next the body, then brown, then dark again at the tip, which is tufted. The fore wings are notched, dark brown at base, lighter till close to the margin, with dark streaks and lines. The hind wings are bright canary-yellow with brownish borders.
The male’s antenne are ciliate, turned back at the tip, while those of the female are simple.
It is very easy to watch a moth lay her eggs and collect them as she leaves them, for she lays one on a leaf, not always on the upper side, then flies about until the next egg must be laid, and deposits it at a distance of several feet from that last laid. This might be interpreted as a “ wise maternal instinct” which allowed each of the future young plenty of food- space, but for the fact that the mother soon flutters back and lays an egg not far from the one she has just laid, and continues ovipositing in the same neigh- borhood, and though each egg is laid at a distance of several feet from the last one, several eggs may be gathered in a square yard. This would indicate a short memory or lack of observation of direction and locality — or a want of that “ wise maternal instinct” so much lauded by sentimentalists. However this
88 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
may be, the moth is interesting as well as the cater- pillar.
Orioles, robins, and gray squirrels eat the cater- pillars greedily, though occasionally frightened by the snake-like anal end.
Parasitic flies, especially microgaster, destroy aan of the half-grown larve.
DEIDAMIA INSCRIPTA
GENUS, DEIDA’MIA, SPECIES, INSCRIP’TA (‘‘ marked”).
One of Us sat on some steps one day watching a gray squirrel descending the Japanese woodbine on the side of the house. He had reached an ornamental ledge on which English sparrows had built a ragged nest of straws and feathers, and he had given a vigor- ous kick with one hind leg and another with the other hind leg, scattering all the straws and feathers to the winds, and was quietly continuing his descent as if nothing had interrupted it and his only object was the nut in the hand of One of Us, when a slight movement of a leaf caught the attention of both. One of Us saw a smooth green head at the edge of the leaf moving in a way which suggested a caterpillar eating. What the squirrel saw she does not know, but he hastened his steps. Luckily One of Us was nearer the leaf than he was, and had leaf and caterpillar in her hands before Bunny arrived. Bunny’s mother had caught an abbotia caterpillar just as One of Us was about to take it, and had deliberately sat up and eaten the squirming thing as a boy sometimes eats a pickled cucumber bought at the corner grocery at recess; so One of Us had learned from practical experience that squirrels were cater- 89
4
pillar-hunters and that it was well to be first in the
90 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
field.
The caterpillar saved from sudden death proved very nearly full grown, and was different from any One of Us had seen. This was exciting, and she searched the vine as far up as she could see, and on the two sides of the house, but found no more caterpillars like this one which was eating peacefully in her pocket tin. The next step was to find out what it was, and she looked through all the descriptions of sphingid cater- pillars, and at all the pictures of them she could find; but none was just like it, so she fed the crawler, hoping to identify the moth it would make. This was a vain hope. The caterpillar pupated finely, but a few weeks later was found to be only a pupa-skin filled with fungus.
This was one of the many blows which fall upon the eaterpillar-hunter or entomologist, and must be ex- pected.
The next June One of Us was searching a woodbine, the common American woodbine, and found on one lobe of a leaf six pale green eggs, and on another seven more. Some of the eggs had been laid longer than others, for they had turned yellowish. Probably they were laid by different moths. All had the shells marked like honeycomb or hammered silver, and the oldest ones showed the little larve through the trans- parent shells. One of Us searched farther and found an egg on a tendril, just where it curled at one tip, and then she spied an egg set among a cluster of flower- buds, and of exactly their size, shape, and color at that stage of their growth. After this she examined many
et. ee
Bee ms
DEIDAMIA INSCRIPTA 91
clusters of buds and found many more eggs; then, on the very young leaves, came upon some tiny cater- pillars with caudal horns. These had a reddish patch just behind the base of the caudal horn, and this is not usual in sphingid caterpillars. Most of those we have reared have had no distinguishing marks when first hatched, but have been plain green or yellowish eaterpillars with caudal horns.
She put eggs into one tin and larve and a leaf or two into a larger one, and carried them home.
The eggs began hatching at one o’clock in the after- noon, and the little caterpillars were almost a quarter of an inch long, yellow-green, with the caudal horns yellow and covered densely with black sete, and had a white bristle at the tip of each. Just behind the horn was a reddish patch.
The empty shells were iridescent, and each cater- pillar ate nearly all the shell from which it came. They did not drink water as eagerly as most young caterpillars, nor did they grow as green after eating, though they ate for six days before molting.
After this first molt they were less than half an inch long, yellow-green, with a yellow subdorsal line from head to horn, a green dorsal line, and a yellow trans- verse line —like a thick fold of skin — between each two abdominal segments. As usual with sphingid larve in the first two stages, they had short sete all over. The head was yellow-green and bilobed, and the feet and props were yellow-green also. The horn was long, slender, and rough with black sete, except at the tip, which was white with white sete. The red- dish spot remained behind the caudal horn. The anal
92 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
plate and props had a glassy look. The fourth seg- ment was slightly swollen.
Three days later they were yellow-green dotted with yellow, with a yellow subdorsal line, and a yellow, wavy stigmatal line on the first three segments, also seven yellow oblique lines edged above with dark green. The head showed very faint yellow face- lines, and the legs and props were yellower than the body.
In this stage they had a funny way of resting with all the props holding a midrib or stem, while the fore part of the body was thrown up and backward until the head was over the ninth segment, mouth-parts and legs being up in the air. They still liked rather young leaves, though not the very youngest ones as in the last stage.
Four days later they molted, and this time there was a decided change in their appearance. They were seven eighths of an inch long, and the head was apple- green, with yellow face-lines, and was rough.
The body was of a bluer green than the head, and the third and fourth segments were slightly swollen; there was a yellow stigmatal line on the first three segments — the thoracic segments — and also a yellow subdorsal line edged above with dark green. The dorsal line was dark green, and the body had trans- verse rows of yellow dots, except the first segment. This time there were eight yellow obliques edged above with dark green. Seven is the normal number of oblique lines for sphingid larve. The legs were yellow, the props green. The caudal horn was long, slender, green at base, black above, white at tip, and
a
Deidamia insecripta.
DEIDAMIA INSCRIPTA 93
rough with black granules. It was depressed or bent backward till nearly horizontal.
The third molt followed in four days, and then the caterpillars were an inch and a quarter long, with the third and fourth segments shghtly thickened. The head was bright green, with two bright yellow face- lines, continued as subdorsals over the bright green body. The venter was bluer green than the rest of the body, and not dotted. The body had yellow trans- verse lines instead of dots, the lines being broken in the stigmatal region. The horn was short, almost triangular, greenish at base, rough with brown gran- ules in the middle, and yellow at tip and on the sides, up which extended the seventh pair of obliques. The anal plate was edged with yellow. The spiracles were conspicuous for the first time, being white with a blue- black crescent on each side. The other lines were the same as before.
The caterpillars ate and grew for five days, and then surprised us by turning pink on the dorsum, losing their grasp of the stems, and stopping eating. All this meant approaching pupation; but they had not molted the regulation “four times,” though they were about two and a quarter inches in length.
On looking over three years’ records of each box we found several variations. Some had but seven obliques, while the rest had eight on each side. Some had no yellow dots below the stigmatal line, while others were dotted almost to the ventral line. Some caudal horns were marked up the front and down the back with a continuation of the dark dorsal line ; some had no green at base, and two were wholly yellow; a few were pink
94. CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
and yellow. One boxful molted but three times, omit- ting the second molt, and fed for twenty days; another lot molted four times and fed for sixteen days, while one molted four times and fed for twenty-six days. In most eases the obliques almost disappeared before pupation.
These caterpillars grew very sluggish after the last molt, and when they stopped eating crawled very slowly about the tin, then stayed still and pupated without spinning.
In the stage before the last molt they were very petulant when disturbed, twitching their bodies and jerking from side to side like the caterpillars of abbotii.
The swollen segments seem to show their kinship with Amphi’on nes’sus, Ampeloph’aga my'ron and A. che'rilus, Philam'pelus pando'rus and P. a’chemon, all common on woodbine, and most of them on grape.
The pupze were a little over an inch in length, brown speckled with darker brown, the dorsum and wing-covers being much darker. They had a sharp cremaster, a pointed projection on top of the head, and one on each eye-cover. Under a lens the dark spec- kles showed as pits. The pupze were slender and not as active as many sphingid pup, hardly writhing when held in the hand.
The fore wings of the moth are in shades of brown, gray, and silver-gray, with a white discal dot. The hind wings are of deep rust-red, with lines of brown and gray, and gray borders. The body is gray, and
J
ad te a a "
the abdomen has brown spots on the dorsum and tip. »—
The whole under surface is much lighter than the upper.
~~
YI >
|
DEILEPHILA LINEATA
GENUS, DEILE’PHILA (‘‘ evening lover”). SPECIES, LINEA’TA (‘‘lined”’).
“ Here ’s a bug for you. Take it quick; I’m afraid it will die! I shut it up tight in this box to keep it safe, and it. may smother, though I came as fast as I could,” said “the old doctor” one morning. Of course we knew that there was no danger of smothering the caterpillar, but we were eager to see what kind could have induced the doctor to box it, for he was one of those unfortunate persons who shiver and “feel creepy” at sight of any crawling thing, and we fully appreciated his kindness in overcoming his feeling so far as to bring the creature even in a closed box. We opened the box, and a very lively caterpillar crawled quickly over the edge, while the doctor jumped back, and the family cried, ‘What a monster!” It was three and a half inches long and as large as most third fingers of medium-sized persons. It was bright green, with orange spots on each side, and a caudal horn.
We asked where it was found.
“In my melon-patch, on the ground,” replied the doctor.
“Has the melon-patch any purslane in it?” asked
95
96 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
the Other of Us, with a twinkle, for the doctor prided himself on his garden.
“ John was just weeding it out when we found the bug. Why?” said the doctor.
“ Because this kind of caterpillar feeds on ‘ pusley’ in preference to other things, though it will eat tur- nip, buckwheat, watermelon, dock, chickweed, apple, plum, currant, grape, woodbine, gooseberry, and even- ing primrose,” said One of Us; and after expostulating with the doctor for calling a fine caterpillar a “ bug,” we went to find “pusley,” or purslane, for it and to put it away.
The next June we were fortunate enough to get a fine batch of eggs of this Dedle’phila linea’ta, or “ white- lined morning sphinx,” so called from the light lines on the wings of the moth. The eggs were small in’ proportion to the size of the moth, ovoid, and yellow- green, growing bluer. Like all sphingid eggs, they became depressed on one side after a day or two. They hatched in six days.
The little caterpillars were not quite a quarter of an inch long, pale green, with short, smooth caudal horns which turned gray at the tip. The head was round and held almost horizontal instead of nearly vertical, and was covered with gray sete. The setz on the body were dark enough to be noticed without a lens. When disturbed the little crawlers dropped by a silken thread as spiders do. They did not eat their shells at all, and were very active, crawling about the purslane stems much of the time. Part of them were given woodbine, since it was easier to get. On the second day some of them showed a distinet brownish-red
it © 7 tT ‘ : 2 Z ,- oe z ae > < + sd — ( 7 a = C * . eS ¢ a a
yp age
Deilephila lineata (small specimens).
DEILEPHILA LINEATA oT
dorsal line from the now black horn half-way to the head, giving a pinkish appearance to that part of the body. A few had the first five or six segments notice- ably pinkish, and all looked black-striped from the rows of black sete — without a lens. With a glass the setze showed clearly. Next day their heads were the color of old ivory, and their bodies had almost as glassy an appearance as those of young 7. abbot'u larve.
The first molt came‘on the eighth day and changed the caterpillars somewhat, besides the increased length. Their heads were smooth, orange-brown, and bilobed. Their bodies were dark green speckled with lighter green. , On the dorsum of the first segment was a divided horny plate of lighter green. <A faint yellow stigmatal line showed on the first three seg- ments, and there was a bright yellow subdorsal line. The legs and props were lighter green, and the horn was light green at base, black and rough above. Some had no yellow lines. In some the anal shield was orange-brown.
In four days they molted again, being now half an inch long, with no sete. The orange-brown head was speckled with a lighter shade. The body was almost black, rather faintly speckled with yellow-white. <A bright yellow subdorsal line extended from head to horn, and on it, on each segment, was a yellow patch. There was a stigmatal wavy line of bright yellow. The spiracles showed yellow-white. The horn was orange- brown at base, black and rough above. The body tapered from the third segment to the head. In this
stage they ate woodbine much better than grape, 7
98 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
which was also given them, and as purslane was not easy to get, all were given woodbine, and throve on it.
The third molt took place five days later. This time the body was black, with transverse lines of white dots, and velvety black on the dorsum and be- tween the segments there. The marks and lines were as before. The legs and props were orange-brown, and the horn was shining black, rough, and ended in two sete. The anal shield was black, speckled and edged with yellow-white, and looked placed very high above the props, instead of ending low down between them.
Four days later they molted for the fourth time, being then an inch and a half long, with small heads, — and pale-green bodies with transverse black lines from the stigmatal line to the dorsal band of velvety black. Between each two segments this band gave off a short branch. On this short black band was placed the yellow patch. The subdorsal and stigmatal lines were bright yellow. The dorsal plate on the first seg- _ ment was orange-brown speckled with lighter brown, as were the anal plate and props. The legs and props were orange-brown, the spiracles yellow-white encir- cled with black. The venter was paler green and mottled, as well as striated, with black.
The caterpillars varied even more in this stage, some having the head, dorsal plate, and the anal props: and shield green speckled with orange, the body hardly striated with black, and on each segment a black bar with an orange spot set in it. The dorsal black band was faint and divided lengthwise by a green line. The bodies tapered from the third seg- ment to the head.
DEILEPHILA LINEATA 99
All the caterpillars had a queer way of moving the caudal horn as a finger is moved up and down without bending it or moving the hand. They were very active, and dropped from the stems when disturbed, instead of clinging faster as most caterpillars do. They jerked the fore part of the body from side to side, as T’. abbotii larvee do when startled.
Four days later they molted for the fifth time, and there came out two distinct forms of coloration. One was mustard-yellow striated with blue-black, with a yellow dot on each segment, and yellow lines as before, but with the horn longer in proportion and still rough, and the spiracles orange encircled with black. The other form was apple-green with much less black, the subdorsal line being a series of yellow spots inclosing an orange dot, and set on the black patch on each seg- ment, with a very faint trace of yellow connecting the spots. One caterpillar had no orange. They moved their horns like fingers or antenne in this stage also.
For six days they fed voraciously, keeping us busy enough in supplying leaves, and they grew very fast, the shortest being over three inches long, the longest nearly three and a half.
After each molt every caterpillar ate up his cast skin even to the rough horn, leaving only the mask. This habit of eating the cast skin certainly removes one trace of caterpillar presence, but it seems very useless, if this is the cause, for the great oblong “ balls” of excrement are a conspicuous guide by which one ean track a caterpillar all over the garden —if it crawls as far as that. Caterpillars digest their food so rapidly that excretion must be very frequent.
100 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
After once knowing lineata in all its stages we have often found nearly full-grown larvee on the unshaded ground in the garden, feeding on purslane, with the midday sun beating down on them. This is unusual, for most moth-larvee, even if feeding at noon, would be under the shelter of leaves or behind a tree-trunk out of the direct rays of the sun. We have never found lineata on woodbine, but other entomologists have.
On the thirtieth day from the egg they began to crawl restlessly about, stopped eating, chewed holes in the scrim over the box, and then spun loose webs like a fish-net between leaves and the tin, crawling about for nearly two days before spinning. In three days the pup were free from the caterpillar-skin. Ima- gine our surprise a few years later to havea brood curl up quietly without spinning a thread, and part of an- other brood go into earth only deep enough to cover them, and there pupate without spinning. This shows that one brood does not teach everything about the habits of the crawlers.
The pupze were nearly two inches long, slender, shghtly pitted on the abdomen and of a pale tan-color — the lightest-colored sphingid pupa we know, except Ampelophaga myron. The head was much prolonged, the tongue-case not raised above the wing-covers. The eyes were well defined. The anal hook, or cremaster, ended in two short points.
The eggs of the brood so fully described were laid on June 10,and on August 11 the first moth emerged be- tween 12:45 and 2 p.m., while we were at luncheon.
The moths are very beautiful. The head, thorax, and |
DEILEPHILA LINEATA 0
top of the abdomen are olive-brown, the patagia being
edged with white, and the abdomen having a dorsal line of white edged with black broken on the basal segments. The fore wings are olive-brown, crossed by a band of buff, the inner end of which is cyanic white. The hind wings are smoky brown at the base and outer edge, with a broad bright pink band across the middle. The sides of the abdomen have a pink band that does not extend all the way to the tip, and alter- nate black and white patches. The wing-fringes are white. The under side of the wings is grayer, with a fainter buff band across both, a little pink being some- times present on the hind wings. The wings are speckled more or less with almest black, and have some irregular patches of the same color. Along the costa of the fore wings, for nearly half its length, lies a line of very long, hair-like scales. The under side of the abdomen is paler than the upper, and the under side of the palpi is white. The antenne are redder brown, with white near the recurved tip. The tongue is over an inch long. The eyes are large and promi- nent, the legs colored like the under side of the ab- domen.
The moths fly from early morning till after dark, perhaps all night. We have taken them feeding at verbenas, honeysuckle, phlox, and the yellow day- lilies. Into the last they dive so far that they can be eatight by closing the petals over them. . We have found them laying eggs on purslane at dusk.
PHILAMPELUS PANDORUS AND ACHEMON
GENUS, PHILAM’PELUS (‘‘vine-lover”). § PANDO’ RUS
s Soa ie ? A';CHEMON (Greek proper name).
We had had so many caterpillars of these two species, both large and small, with horns and without, that it was somewhat startling to discover that we had not their life-histories. It was mortifying too, for we might have had them many times over when the moths emerged, and the only way to regain self-respect was to get them. One of Us knew a woodbine sprawl- ing in long trails over a mass of cobblestones left on a hilltop by a retreating glacier, and this woodbine had furnished crawlers of both kinds for several summers. — There was, then, good hope of finding eggs of both species if she hit upon just the right time. The weather was intensely hot, the sky cloudless, the hill- top unshaded, so One of Us arose with the robins,
the earliest birds in that part of the country, and —
walked up the hill between four and five o’clock in the
morning, much distracted by the songs and glimpses —
of birds she wished to follow and watch, and much
tempted by rudbeckias and meadow-rue in the fields
by the way. The cobblestones were hard to the knees,
but stooping was too back-breaking, so she knelt 102
Philampelus pandorus.
P. PANDORUS AND ACHEMON 103
among the vines, examining every lobe of every leaf of every long trail of vine, and finding many eggs and a few hatchlings. The eggs were laid singly on the upper side of nearly full-grown leaves, except in two instances, when each egg was laid on a grass-blade which lay across a leaf and an inch and a half or two inches above it. It was hot work kneeling in the sun and grew hotter every moment, and the passing farmers nearly tumbled off their wagons in their efforts to see what “the Bug-woman” could be doing, while the boys who were driving cows to the pastures over the hill and down the other side made a pretense of picking up stones to throw at laggards, or cutting unneces- sary switches from the one small willow, in the hope of making out why One of Us was on her knees in that place at that hour.
After careful examination several long sprays were marked as having no eggs on them, and One of Us went home, hot but triumphant, to repeat the per- formance several times, getting eggs each time and learning the exact date of the laying of the eggs found on the marked sprays. Then came the waiting to find out if she had both species or only one, and this was patience-trying.
The eggs were almost globular, dark, bright green, and grew yellower before hatching. The egg-period was six days for some, and seven for others found in cooler weather.
The young crawlers had large, round, pale-green heads, yellow-green bodies, feet, and props, and dark eaudal horns exactly as long as their bodies between horn and head, and ending in two sete. Around the
104 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
base of the horn and extending a little way down the anal shield was a red-brown patch, very noticeable in every case but one, and plain to see in that one. The caterpillars ate their egg-shells to the leaf in most instances, then crawled quickly up the midrib on the under side of a fresh leaf, drank from the drops sprin- kled on it, and soon began eating holes through the parenchyma. The two species were alike so far, and we did not know whether we had both or not. They ate woodbine very well, and were satisfactory, never meddling with each other or hurting each other aeci- dentally.
In four days they molted for the first time, and still were alike, so much alike that no scrutiny with a fifteen-diameters lens could detect any difference. ‘Their heads were small, round, flat, green, and held nearly horizontal, giving them a crouching look as if flattened along the leaf. Their bodies were green, finely dotted with yellow-white, and having pale yel-
low-white subdorsal lines from head to horn. The
third segment was slightly swollen. The legs and props were green, and the horn was as long as the body, slender, almost black, rough, and red-brown at base and on the anal shield. This color varied from red-brown to wine-color. At the base of the horn in front, on the red color, was a dark red dot — almost black, and evidently the center of the tubercle which would replace the horn in some future molt. — The caterpillars still ate holes through the leaves. Three days later they molted again. This time the two kinds could be distinguished and separated. Pandorus had the head small, flat, and held horizon- —
Philampelus achemon.
P. PANDORUS AND ACHEMON 105
tal, as before, and head and first segment were of a bright, clear yellow-green. The second and third seg- ments were speckled with black, and the whole body was bright green, with a dark dorsal line, very faint yellow subdorsal lines, and five oblique, regular oval patches — not lines—encireled with black and sur- rounding the unnoticeable spiracles. These obliques were the unmistakable characteristic of pandorus. The legs and props were green, and the horn was long, very slender, deep red with black sete all over, yellow at base with a black spot in front, and curled forward over the back. The third segment was more swollen than before.
Achemon had the head flat, small, clear green, and held horizontal. The body was clear, bright green, dotted with yellow, and had no black dots. The yel- low subdorsals were clearer than those of pandorus. There were six pairs of obliques of yellow edged above with dark green, longer and narrower than those of pandorus, as well as one pair more in number. The legs and props were green, the anal plate was edged with yellow, and the horn was long, very slender, deep red, and almost black at tip, its base being yellow in front with a shining black dot, and red behind, the color extending part-way down the anal shield. In- stead of curling forward, like the horn of pandorus, achemows horn was held perpendicular or bent back- ward until it made a line with the dorsum. The third segment was more swollen.
Both species now ate through the leaf at the margin, beginning at the tip of alobe, and working down. After every molt they ate the cast skins, except the masks.
106 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS ©
Pandorus molted three days later, some coming out green as before, with the second and third segments dotted with white encircled by black, the other seg- ments having these ringed dots on the sublateral and stigmatal regions only, and losing them in a day or two. The obliques had now the salmon tint of those of the full-fed larva, and the horn was short in propor- tion to the size of the body, and had at base in front a yellow tubercle with a black circle about it and a shining black central dot. The third segment was very large, and the fourth decidedly larger than the other abdominal segments, though not as large as the third. The caterpillar could draw the head and first two segments completely within the third. Other larvee were brown of various shades, marked like the green ones,
Achemon also raolted in three days, and showed the same variety of brown and green coloring. The head was plain green, or brown, round, and no longer flat. The body was green, or brown, the first segment dotted with white; the second and third segments were covered thickly with white dots ringed with black, and the other segments had similar black-ringed white dots below the lateral line, and white dots above it. The legs and props were green, or brown. The horn was bright, deep red, almost black at the tip, shorter in proportion to the body, and having at the base in front a bright yellow tubercle with a black circle and central dot. The obliques were long, narrow, broken white ovals, with a black line around each.
Three days later pandorus molted for the fourth time. Some were green, some greenish brown, some
Philampelus achemon.
P. PANDORUS AND ACHEMON 107
pinkish brown, some clear fawn-color, others chocolate- brown, and one was almost black, growing purple- brown as it grew larger, as if the color were diluted to eover the increased surface. Each had a dark dorsal line, lighter broken subdorsal lines, the first five seg- ments speckled with black, the sixth to tenth segments having two black dots each on the dorsum and a few on the venter; all were lighter in color on the dorsum and dark on the venter; the obliques and tubercles were as before, and the horn had disappeared with the east skin. The legs and props were of the body-color, whatever that was. The darker larve had obliques almost white instead of salmon-color. The spiracles were dark. No caterpillar had more than five obliques on a side, and one had but four, the fifth being merely suggested.
The fourth molt of achemon was four days after the third. The caterpillars came out green, greenish brown, pinkish brown, and chocolate-brown, but none was as dark as the darkest pandorus. The head was plain green, or brown. The body was green, or brown, with dark dorsal and subdorsal lines, thickly dotted all over with black-ringed white dots. The obliques were long, rather wide ovals of white edged with black, the edge being irregular. The horn was gone, and the tubercle was shining black encircled with deep yellow. The legs and props were of the body-color. There were more brown than green caterpillars.
Both species now ate voraciously and grew very rapidly. They are very satisfactory crawlers to rear, for they are not delicate, do not hurt each other, and have no unpleasant ways. Their boxes give out an
108 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
agreeable odor, and the caterpillars “ eat the leaves up clean,” leaving only stems to be removed. When at rest the head and first two segments are drawn into the third segment, which is very much larger than any other. These are the most formidable caterpillars on woodbine or grape-vines, and they sometimes do real harm, because so many eggs may be laid on one vine, and each crawler eats so much that the vine is almost defoliated. We once saw half a peck of the two spe- cies taken from a woodbine which grew over a piazza, and we had to see this rich treasure thrown away, wasted, because we were visiting a family which shud- dered at the mere mention of any crawling thing, and we could not, of course, take the caterpillars into the house. We have never ceased to regret the loss, how- ever.
Pandorus fed for six days, achemon for five, after the fourth molt, then stopped eating, and crawled restlessly about the tins. Each larva was put into a separate smaller box to lie still and become a pupa. The green crawlers grew purplish on the dorsum, and the brown ones reddish or grayish, as they approached pupation. The largest ones were over four inches long, the smallest a little over three inches, and there were more large ones than small.
For six days both species lay in their tins, and on the sixth cast the caterpillar-skins and appeared as bright green, soft pups, showing the wing-covers and abdominal segments more plainly than anything else. In fifteen or twenty hours they had settled into bright chestnut-brown pup, about two and a half inches long, though achemon was a trifle shorter than pan-
P. PANDORUS AND ACHEMON 109
dorus. Pandorus was noticeably stouter than achemon and had a rounder head. Achemon’s head was much more distinct from the thorax and more slender, form- ing an easy mark by which to distinguish the two species. These pupe are easily disturbed and writhe and roll over and over when touched, or even exposed to the air, at first. Later they become more quiet, but still move the abdomen when held in a warm hand. Out of doors the pup are formed in cells under- ground, but they do not need earth in tin boxes unless they exude more fluid than usual. One achemon larva spun a few threads of silk over a little earth which was in his tin — the only instance.
The moths are very beautiful, and very unlike in eolor. Pandorus has shades of rich olive-green, the dark shades being especially velvety. The fore wings have patches of pale pink, varying much in depth of color, and sometimes merely suggested. The hind wings have, each, a pale pink patch, a black patch, and some lines. The under side is of a yellower green. The antenne are light above, rust-colored on the under side, and are ciliate in the male, while those of the female are simple.
Achemon has the head, thorax, and abdomen ashes- of-roses, the patagia velvety brown, the antenne cream-colored above and rust-red beneath, and curved back at the tip. Those of the male are ciliate, those of the female simple. The fore wings are ashes-of-roses, with dark brown lines and spots; the hind wings pink at the base, having the margin ashes-of-roses, with a series of dark brown spots. The under side of both wings is rust-colored, flushed with pink.
110 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
These moths have tongues long enough to reach the nectar of Japanese honeysuckles, nasturtiums, and similar flowers, but not long enough for the deeper honeysuckles and day-liles. They fly after dark, and have a very strong, rapid flight. They are eaten by several kinds of birds — blackbirds, robins, orioles, and even English sparrows.
The Other of Us was called down-stairs one day to “come and see an English sparrow waltzing on the lawn with a humming-bird.” On reaching the lawn she found the sparrow trying to fly away with a fine pandorus moth, evidently not long out of the pupa, though its wings were dry and fully developed. She drove away the sparrow and put the moth in a safe place on a woodbine; but it did not stay there, and its fluttering along the ground soon drew the attention of the sparrows, and again one of them seized it, sue- ceeded in detaching three of its wings, and flew away with the body and one wing before any one saw that the moth was in need of help.
Orioles, as well as sparrows, frequent woodbines and destroy many more moths and caterpillars than the noisy English sparrows, going quietly and systemati- eally to work, examining every stem and leaf, and carrying to their young in the nest hundreds of myron, achemon, pandorus, nessus, and abbotii larve. Indeed, orioles are more destructive to more species of eater- pillars than any other birds we have watched, for they eat and carry to their young the hairy Clisiocampa, or “tent-caterpillars,” and eat the Hyphantria cunea, or ‘fall web-worms,” in immense numbers, eating also— the pup of the “ forest tent-caterpillars,” which they —
P. PANDORUS AND ACHEMON ett
pull out of the cocoons after making a neat slit in the side of the cocoon at the “exit end.” This makes them very valuabie birds to have among us; but if we want woodbine sphingids, it is very trying to see ori- oles fly away with one after another, while we fail to find them in time to save them.
Pandorus and achemon are said to be double-brooded, but we have never found them earlier than July in any stage, and the pupe formed from this brood have never given the moth in time for a second brood. Usually our moths have not emerged before the last of June or the first of July of the following year, but occasionally one has come out, when the house has been over-warmed with a furnace fire, in November or December. From early July until October, eggs, larvee, and moths may be found, September being the best month, in New England, for half-grown and full- grown caterpillars.
AMPELOPHAGA CHdiRILUS
GENUS, AMPELOPH’AGA (‘‘ vine-eater,”’ though it does not eat Ampelopsis). SPECIES, CH@R'ILUS.
The Lane furnished us with our eggs of cherilus. One of Us searched the azalea and viburnum, and found on the under side of the leaves globular green eggs, which hatched in six days.
The caterpillars were very pale green, with long black horns which turned backward and were bifid at the tip. After eating their egg-shells they ate round holes through the leaves. In a few days they grew glassy green, with paler green lateral lines, and the horns became brown, lighter at base on the sides and back. They rested on the midrib of the leaf.
Four days after hatching they molted. They were green, with faint white lateral and oblique lines, and brown horns. The spiracles were faint orange, not noticeable.
Six days later they molted again, and lost the glassy look. The lateral lines disappeared on the fourth segment, and were lacking on all between that and the tenth segment, where they reappeared. The body was very white between the obliques, which did not meet on the back. The dorsal area was covered with dots. The legs were light, and the feet had a
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transparent look. The sides of the brown horn were lighter and reddish. The segments were very plainly marked, and the third and fourth were swollen. There were faint face-lines.
The third molt followed in five days. The cater- pillars had very small heads, with whitish face-lines. The body was very yellow-green, with a faint dorsal line. The last pair of obliques were very white. The eaudal horn was blue, with black granules. The feet were quite red, the spiracles bright red with a yellow dot at each end. Other larve had the horn blue at the base and light pink above.
The fourth molt occurred five days later. The head was marked by face-lines which continued over the first and second segments, much fainter on the second. The body was bluer green than in the last molt and darker below the lateral line. The obliques were much whiter. Some horns were very blue, others pinkish. Some larvee were brown instead of green. The anal shield was edged with lighter green or brown, according to the body-color of the crawler. The swollen seg- ments were very conspicuous and had no dots. The illustration shows one green and one brown eaterpil- lar. They posed side by side as if for comparison.
Before pupating they turned pinkish on the dorsum, and, thirteen days after the fourth molt, began spin- ning leaves together with a “ fish-net ” cocoon. Three days later the pup cast the larva-skin, having lived thirty-six days fromthe egg. They ate Azalea viscosa and Viburnum dentatum, and ate from the margin of the leaf after the second molt.
We have not found chwrilus common, but have oc- 8
114 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
casionally come upon single caterpillars feeding on azalea in the swampy fields or by the edge of the Lane. We have never found an early moth or larva, ours being all in August and September. It is considered double-brooded and “ rather common from Canada to Georgia, and westward to Iowa,” according to Mr. Beutenmiuller.
The pupa is pinkish brown speckled with black, and very deep brown between the segments. It is pinker than myron.
In the moth the head and thorax are of a deep cin- namon-brown, the abdomen being of a lighter and grayer shade. The fore wings are of a purple-brown, with greenish scales along the costa and a wide band of the deep cinnamon-brown crossing each wing near the apex. A narrow and broken band is sometimes found nearer the base of the wing. The fore wings are slightly faleate. The hind wings are of a very red tan-color, or rust-color, unmarked. The antenne are tan-color on one side and white on the other. They are simple in the female and ciliate in the male. The tongue is notaninch long. The moths fly after dark,
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Ampelophaga myron (larva with cocoons of parasite).
AMPELOPHAGA MYRON
GENUS, AMPELOPH'AGA (‘‘ vine-eater’’). SPECIES, MY’RON (named for the sculptor Myron).
In one of our morning walks up the Lane we spied a greenish moth on the under side of an oak-leaf. Hold- ing a box under her, we broke off the stem and dropped leaf and moth into the box, covering it very quickly, for there is always a chance of losing the moth, though by day many sphingid moths are inactive —apparently asleep.
When we examined our captive it proved to be my- ron, the first one of its kind we had seen. Having learned the unwisdom of killing a moth before trying to get eggs from it, we put it into a box with netting over the top, and waited for the next day to show the result. Great was our delight on finding the netting and paper lining studded with almost globular bright apple-green eggs, and many of them. Putting the moth into a fresh box, we detached all the eggs, cut- ting the netting and paper when they did not come off easily, and counted ninety-three of the pretty things. These were shut into a little tin box, labeled and dated, and put on a shelf to wait for hatching-time. This was in June.
For six nights the myron laid eggs, fewer each night, until we had two hundred, then she died.
115
116 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
On the sixth day after they were laid the eggs began to turn yellow, and on the ninth day they hatched, giving little bright yellow caterpillars with long, cury- ing caudal horns which soon turned black, and having short unnoticeable sete. Two years later we had an- other lot of eggs, which hatched in six days after they were laid. This was in July. The egg-period is, there- fore, not always the same, though one of six days is more common than one of nine.
The little caterpillars were given grape-leaves. They did not eat their shells, but drank thirstily, then began to eat the leaves, and grew greener as they ate. They were very active, and several escaped through a tiny erack where the corner of the box-cover did not fit per- fectly, and in spite of wet scrim which was over the top of the box. This was our first proof that round- topped boxes were safer for young caterpillars.
The second brood had straight horns and were fed on woodbine.
The first brood molted six days, the second four days, after hatching. The first brood came out greener yellow, with deeper green below the white subdorsal line, which extended from head to horn. The abdom- inal segments were much whiter on the dorsum than the thoracic, and had a green mark, shaped like a two-tined pitchfork-iron, on each segment. The caudal horn was whitish at base, and reddish or pur- plish the rest of the way to the tip. The head and legs were green. The anal shield had a faint whitish edge. The third and fourth segments were larger on the sides than any of the others, a characteristic of this family, and specially marked in myron, which
AMPELOPHAGA MYRON 18
some of the children used to eall “ the broad-shoul- dered caterpillars,” and other children “ the big-sleeved caterpillars.” In this stage, however, the tumidity was barely indicated, not really noticeable. The cater- pillars ate their skins, except the horns and masks.
The second molt followed in three days for the first brood, in four days for the second. This time the head had faint yellow face-lines, and all sete disappeared. The body was bright green with paler dorsal areas, and the first brood had a red spot on the dorsal line of each abdominal segment. The second brood lacked these spots. Both had pink caudal horns and notice- able tumidity of the third and fourth segments.
The first brood molted again in four days, the see- ond in three, and this time the crawlers were a little over an inch long, and had head, props, and body bright green granulated with yellow. The head had two yellow face-lines, and a lateral yellow line on each edge. The subdorsal line was yellow, and each ab- dominal segment had a dorsal red spot set in a yellow patch. There were seven oblique lines of yellow gran- ules set close together, and a faint sublateral yellow line on the first three segments. The spiracles were bright red, with a yellow dot at each end. The anal plate was edged with yellow. The horn was reddish. The swelling of the third and fourth segments was much increased.
The second brood molted for the fourth time three days later, but the first brood fed for six days before molting again. This time they were over an inch and a quarter in length, bright yellow-green on the dor- sum, blue-green below, and the granulation had
118 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
become yellow dots, not raised. The head had bright yellow face-lines. The legs were green with red-brown tips, and each had a black spot. The props were green suffused with almost lilac. The anal shield was edged with yellow, and the horn was blue-green at the base, then yellow-green, then yellow at the tip, granu- lated with blue-black above and beneath, the yellow subdorsals extending part-way up the sides. The spiracles were red with a white dot at each end, except on the first segment, where the dots were clear yellow. The obliques were faint and lilac-whitish. In the first brood the eaudal horn was purplish, bluish, or reddish, and there were dorsal red spots on the abdominal seg- ments. These were lacking in the second brood. The third and fourth segments were much swollen.
The second brood gave still greater variety by showing several caterpillars of a clear yellow-brown color, with queer splashes of dark bottle-green, and obliques of pinkish lilac. One molted a very pink- brown, with pink obliques and subdorsals. In these varieties the horn was blackish green with yellow tips. Two of the larve had one red spot each, on the dor- sum. They ate voraciously and grew to a length of about three inches.
On the fifth day the first brood, and on the sixth day the second brood, began to turn pink or pinkish lilac, and stopped eating, then spun loose webs among leaves, or fastened leaves to the tin. In three days the second brood cast the caterpillar-skin, but the first brood were quiet for seven days before the pups appeared.
The pup were of pale coffee-brown, suffused at
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Ampelophaga myron.
AMPELOPHAGA MYRON 119
first with pink, dotted with dark brown. The abdomen was of lighter color than the rest, and had a very dark band between each two segments. The pupz were one and three eighths inches long, not slender, and had a sharp cremaster.
The moths of the second brood, which had pupated in August, emerged in September, twenty-two days later, while the pupz of the first brood, formed in July, did not give the moths until May of the follow- ing year.
Three years later we had three sets of myron eggs from captured moths. Of these three broods nearly half the larve were of shades of brown, varying from a clear, light tan to a deep chocolate-brown, with pink- ish obliques edged below with dark brown or dark green, and the bodies were spotted with either dark brown or dark green. All these had red spots on the dorsum.
It is not uncommon for a species to show. two forms of coloring, the brown and the green, and often there are intermediate forms combining both colors; but one’s first experience of it is always a surprise. If some hatched brown and others green it would not seem so queer, but having them alike until the third or fourth molt and then so very different is startling until one is used to it. :
Myron is one of our most common caterpillars in New England, and is found on grape and woodbine only, as far as records show, and we have never suc- ceeded in making it eat any other leaf. It is found “from Canada to Georgia, and westward to Missouri and Iowa,” Mr. Beutenmiiller says. There is a variety,
120 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
cnotus, rare in the North, but the common form in the South. It differs from myron in having the fore wings brown instead of green and gray-green. Both have the hind wings of a bright tan-color, myron’s having a green patch at the anal angle.
In myron the body is gray-green, the patagia being of the brighter green of the wing-patches. The an- tenn are pale above and tawny beneath, and the legs are gray-green. The tongue is about an inch long. The moths fly rather early after dark, and are easy to net. |
The caterpillars feed on cloudy days nearly all day, and on sunny days begin to feed toward sunset. They rest on the stem or midrib of the leaf when nearly full grown, and bite the edge, so that the head only is seen, unless one can go behind the vine, as on a piazza or trellis. All these caterpillars make a slight noise in eating, and we have often found them by hearing this. The very young caterpillars cling to any vein of a young leaf, and eat holes in the parenchyma, or green part, until they are big enough to hold the edge of the leaf and bite through the whole tissue.
Orioles are very destructive to them, and search our vine by the hour, carrying off to their young many a fine specimen which we would gladly have if it were within reach. Gray squirrels also eat them with eagerness.
Myron caterpillars, when full grown or nearly so, are more quiet than abboti or inscripta, having none of the petulant jerking motion when disturbed, and it may be beeause of this that they are so often stung by brac’onid flies. The fly pierces the caterpillar’s skin
AMPELOPHAGA MYRON 121
with its ovipositor and lays several eggs in the cater- pillar’s body. We have counted seventy cocoons on one poor myron. From the eggs hatch tiny grubs, which feed upon the tissues of the caterpillar until they are full fed, when they eat their way through its skin, holding firmly to the larva by their anal end, and in this position spin their little white cocoons. Many a caterpillar bristling with these cocoons has been brought to us as a rare specimen! Most persons who see one like this for the first time think that the cocoons are eggs. Only flies will hatch from such a specimen, and there is no way of saving its life.
Experience enables us to tell a stung specimen be- fore the grubs come out to spin. There is a peculiar look about the caterpillar, and when the grubs are nearly full fed they can be seen moving about under the skin of their host. The presence of these braconid flies is one of the most trying calamities an entomolo- gist has to bear.
Myron is said to be double-brooded, but we find moths, eggs, and larve from May till October.
IX
SUBFAMILY SPHINGIN At
SUBFAMILY, SPHINGIN®.
PROTOPARCE CELEUS
GENUS, PROTOPAR'CE. SPECIES, CE’LEUS (a king of Eleusis).
W* hunted for these eggs on the tomato-plants, and found plenty on the under side of leaves, one or two eggs to a leaf, never more. They were globular, and exactly of the leaf-color, and were probably recently laid, for it was four or five days be- fore they grew yellowish, and six before the first one hatehed. The little caterpillar was not quite a quarter of an inch long, green, with sparse sete, and a dark gray, long, slender caudal horn which curved back- ward.
In five days the first molt came, and the larve had doubled in length. The head was smaller in propor- tion to the body, round, green, and granulated. The body was green, with transverse rows of granulations, denser on the first three segments. The legs were gray, the props green, and the caudal horn was dark gray, slender, and curved backward. The spiracles, usually inconspicuous at this early stage of larval life, were plainly visible and dark gray.
122
PROTOPARCE CELEUS 123
These caterpillars were rather quiet and gave no trouble, eating well, but not voraciously. Four days later they molted again, and again were doubled in length, being three quarters of an inch long. The head was green, rough with white granules, and the mouth-parts were gray. The body was just the green of a tomato-leaf — of the under side — and hada broad white subdorsal band from head to horn. Seven faint yellow obliques showed. The horn was long, slender, straight, green above and beneath, with black spines, and white on the sides with white spines, the tip end- ing in two black spines. The legs were green, ringed with gray, the props green, and the anal plate was edged with white. The spiracles were gray encircled with white.
The third molt took place in five days. The crawlers were not quite an inch and a quarter long.. They were of the deeper green of the upper side of the leaf now, granulated, and on the thoracic segments the granules were sharp like thorns, each set in a circle of darker green. The obliques were yellow-white, the last pair wider than the others and extending up the sides of the caudal horn, which was almost black above and beneath. The anal plate was edged with yellow-white. The legs were gray, with white thorns on the outer, and black dashes on the inner, side. The props were green granulated with white. The spiracles were deep orange, surrounded by a black line, then by a gray band, except on the first segment, where they were buff with no rings.
The fourth molt followed in three days. The crawl- ers were nearly two inches long and began to eat
124 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
ravenously. They had changed somewhat. The head was large, round, pale green with a few white dots. The first and anal segments were like the head. The thoracic segments and the dorsum and venter of all were dotted with white. The abdominal segments were dark blue-green with transverse striations. The obliques were yellow-white, the last half of the last pair being clear white. On the substigmatal ridge was a pale green line which made a Z with each oblique, inclosing the spiracle. The spiracles were white on the first segment, buff on the others, and encircled with black. The anal plate was edged with greenish yellow. The caudal horn was long, slender, sharp, rough, and blue-black, with a few white spines. The legs were green with black dashes, the props were green dotted with white, the anal pair paler.
The caterpillars ate so much that in five days they grew to a length of four and a quarter inches, being as large around as a forefinger, and very strong. They jerked themselves furiously if disturbed, and made a squeaking noise, but how they made it we never could find out. The boxes can be kept clean much more easily at this stage if a little sand is sprinkled on the bottom.
At the end of the five days they stopped eating, grew duller in color, and crawled noisily about the tins, trying to get out. We found that they exuded so much sticky fluid that we gave them a little earth in the tins. They went into this —it was not more than two inches deep —and lay there for two weeks. Then the pup appeared, bright green in color, soft, and with a short, wide flap from the head over the wing- covers. We left them to harden, when, to our surprise,
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PROTOPARCE CELEUS 125
they had long loops from the head to beyond the middle of the wing-covers, like jug-handles.
After this One or the Other of Us was on the watch to see a pupa just out of the larva-skin, and observe its development into the brown, firm pupa with the “jug-handle” tongue-case. It was a long time before success rewarded our vigilance, but at last One of Us, who had prepared a box with only earth enough to ab- sorb the fluid from the caterpillar without being deep enough to cover it, saw a pupa wriggling out of the larva-skin. At first it was a green, pulpy mass, with the abdominal segments very soft and stretched out, the eyes very prominent, and the head bent forward over the thorax, while the tongue-case was double, short, wide, flat, and appressed. Very slowly the body contracted into shape, the head drew back into line with the body, and the tongue-case, now looking like a single tube, “pulled” out like molasses candy, be- coming more slender, with a bulbous tip, just as a bit of molasses candy does when pulled. As the head drew back and the body contracted, the tongue was left in the air, except where its tip touched the wing- covers, and its base was attached to the head. Still it was not arched like the tongue-cases of the other pup, but sagged in the middle or just below it. In time, however, as the membrane covering it grew firmer, it rose into a fine curve and hardened, growing brown as did the rest of the pupa. This process occu- pied two hours, and even then the color was not the deep chestnut-brown which it became later. The wing-covers were drawn out to their full size in the same way.
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126 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
The pupz were a little over two and a half inches _
long, and the tip of the tongue-case touched the wing- covers a little more than half-way down.
They are very easily injured at first, and the promi- nent tongue-case breaks so easily that great care is needed in packing these pup for transportation. Fine, sifted earth is the best packing, though cotton may be used if no pressure comes on the tongue-case.
The caterpillars feed on tomato, tobacco, potato, Datura (jimson-weed), ground-cherry, and matrimony- vine, and a great deal they eat, too. When hatched they eat little holes through a leaf; then as they grow they begin on a very tender young leaf at the top of a stem of tomato, for instance, strip the midrib com- pletely on both sides, and then take the next larger
leaf. They feed at dusk, night, and early morning,
hiding through the day, unless it is cloudy or rainy, or they are molting or stung.
They may be traced by following the bare midribs and stems—for in the later molts they devour the midribs too — and searching the leaves nearest the last bare stem, counting from the top. The balls of execre-
ment also show where the caterpillar has been or is, -
and sharp eyes do the rest. The green crawlers are not easy to find. We have seen an observing man look carefully over a whole plant and fail to find two half-grown ones which we could see all the time. One of Us was quite indignant with the Other for showing her as a caterpillar what she supposed to be a green tomato. Itwas both. Atleast, it was a celeus and part of the tomato, the rest being inside celews, who lay in the hollow he had eaten out of the tomato and looked just like it. It was only his moving head which be-
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Protoparce celeus. Pup of celeus and carolina for comparison,
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PROTOPARCE CELEUS 127
trayed him to the Other of Us. For these big and vora- cious crawlers eat leaves and green and ripe tomatoes with equal enjoyment after reaching the third or fourth molt, though, as they cannot see, they do not select the best tomatoes, as birds and wasps choose the best pears.
We had been told of “ huge black” caterpillars on tomato-plants, and had seen records of “ a dark form” of celeus, but we could not find one for many years. Then one day a man came to the piazza on his bicycle, and handed us atin coffee-can, saying, ‘I thought you might like these, and the folks was glad to be quit of them.” One of Us opened the box and poured out two or three full-grown celeus larvee, then a “huge black” one, then two or three of a deep purple-brown color, then two which looked like green overshot with brown, as silk is sometimes. In all there were sixteen big crawlers, and not one bit of food for them. Tomato- leaves. were soon provided, and the caterpillars were sorted according to color. The next day One of Us found several brown celeus and one almost black one in the doctor’s garden, and then we were satisfied. It is so much more satisfactory to find them one’s self !
The “black” and brown ones are marked like the green ones, and their pup are not to be distinguished from those of the green larve.
It is much easier to see the dark caterpillars on the vines, for they are very conspicuous, but when they crawl about on the ground before burrowing they have a better chance of escaping notice than the green ones. We followed a green celeus onee when it left the tomato-vine, to see how far it would go before burrowing. The ground was soft all about, after celeus crossed one path, yet the creature crawled
128 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
seventy-five or eighty feet without stopping, simply going straight in the direction in which it had started. Then, when it began to burrow, One of Us picked it up and put it into a tin.
The moths are handsome, very large and very strong, and have tongues fully four inches long. They are dusk-fliers, and frequent honeysuckle, lilies, and other sweet flowers having long tubes. They are all gray, black, and white, except a row of orange spots on each side of the abdomen. Like most sphingid moths, they dart downward when frightened, so a net
should be held below the moth to be caught. This -
habit is to be remembered when transferring the moth from the net to the cage. If the opening of the cage is uppermost, the net can be brought down, opened just enough to give the moth room to pass, and it will dart down into the cage.
These moths are said to be double-brooded, but we have never found eggs or caterpillars earlier than late July, though we have caught the moths early in July. Farther south there are probably two broods each year. They are rather common all over the United States and Canada—in some places very common, in others much less so.
The pup are often turned up when potatoes are dug or gardens are “ spaded over.”
Robins have been seen carrying off full-grown ce- leus caterpillars, having first pecked them till they loosened their hold of the tomato-stems and fell to the ground, where they were soon reduced to helplessness
by the robins. We have not known or heard of any
other bird’s attempting to eat them.
- _
Protoparee carolina (half grown).
PROTOPARCE CAROLINA
GENUS, PROTOPAR'CE. SPECIES, CAROLI'NA,.
Carolina is a more Southern species than celeus, or rather is more common in the South than elsewhere, although it is found all over the United States and in Canada. It feeds on tomato, potato, tobacco, and Da- tura stramonium, or jimson-weed.
We had more than one hundred eggs from the tomato-plants in the garden, and close examination showed that some were globular and the others ovoid, so we separated them and waited for the little crawl- ers to hatch. Fully half of the eggs turned speckled, then gray, then coal-black, and the upper part of the shell sank to the under part, giving a withered look. These eggs proved spoiled in some way and were thrown out. The rest were bright green, just the color of the tomato-leaves, and grew yellower and paler before hatching. They were laid on either the upper or under side of the leaf, and seldom more than one on a leaf. When more than one are found they may be laid by different moths. Some of the eggs found had no’ depression in the upper side, a sign of their being “fresh laid.” These hatched on the seventh day, while others hatched in four, five, and six days after
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130 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
we found them —or the children, for two of the ehil- dren helped us hunt for them. The globular eggs proved celeus, and their caterpillars have been de- scribed separately. The ovoid eggs gave carolina, but we did not know this until the crawlers were almost full fed, though we hoped for carolina. There are so many varieties of color and marks in celeus that we did not feel sure that these were not merely forms which we had not seen before, but we kept their his- tory separate, hoping for carolina.
The newly hatched caterpillars were yellow, very pale and empty-looking, with straight reddish caudal horns. After eating their shells they began eating little holes through the leaves, and soon grew green, with a white subdorsal line from head to horn, while the horn became brown at base, shading lighter to the tip.
The young celeus had a dark gray horn which eurved backward.
In four days carolina molted for the first time, and the head was round, green, and rough with white granules. The body was green, with white dots and white subdorsals from head to horn. Celews had no subdorsals, or very faint ones.
In carolina the horn was dark brown, lighter at the tip, very large at the base, but tapering rapidly to a very slender upper part, and rough with short spines. The next day white obliques appeared, crossing the subdorsals and almost meeting on the dorsal line. The larve ate their skins. Celeus still had the horn eray.
The second molt came three days later. The head
PROTOPARCE CAROLINA 13
was almost round, green, with white granules. The body was green, with white granules on the thoracic and white dots on the abdominal segments, white sub- dorsals, and white obliques edged above with black. The legs were dark, the props green; the anal plate was edged with light yellow-green. The horn was brown at base, almost black at tip, and rough with dark spines. The crawlers ate their skins, except the masks.
Celeus had the horn green in front and behind with black spines, and white on the sides with white spines, and the legs green ringed with gray.
Four days later they molted for the third time. The head was round and green, finely dotted with white. The body was green, with white granules on the tho- racic segments, and dots on the lower part of the abdominal segments. The dorsum was very white- green, the sides were very yellow-green, and the ven- tral and stigmatal areas were very blue-green. These shades of green varied enough to give a striped look to the caterpillars, very different from the blue-green or yellow-green or white-green of celeus larvee, each of which was of one shade. Carolina’s obliques were white, edged above with black; celeus’ were yellow- white. Carolinas legs were green and black; celeus’ were gray and black. Carolinas props were green, and the anal plate was edged with bright yellow-green. Carolina’s horn was bright tan-color, with black spines in front and behind, long and stout. Celews’ horn was either black, blue with black spines, blue at the sides and black in front and behind, or black with white part-way up the sides.
132 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
The caterpillars ate voraciously for a week, then molted for the fourth time. Carolina now showed three distinct forms—one just like the last molt, ex- cept that the horn was red, shorter in proportion, and curved backward. The second hada plain green head, the body green, minutely dotted with white, and with the obliques white, edged above with broken black lines. The legs were black and white, looking spec- kled; the props were green; the anal plate was edged with yellow-green. The horn was short, stout, rose- red. The third form was of a dirty green, the head plain, the body transversely striated, or finely lined, with black, and with white dots so small as to be seen with a lens only. The obliques were dirty white, with black above. The legs were black and dirty white, the props dirty green; the anal plate was edged with dull yellow. The horn was short, stout, and dull red.
There was a fourth form much like the last, but the green was more olive on the head, and there were two broad face-lines of smoky black. The body had a black dorsal line, somewhat broken, and was of a cleaner green, with a black patch on the dorsum of the first segment. The legs were black and green, the props green with black marks; the horn was short, stout, and red. The spiracles of all were black, with a yellowish dot at each end, in a gray oval.
No carolina had the shining look which the green forms of celeus have when nearly full fed, but all were dull of surface, and the dorsum was set with many short pale brown set, the sides having fewer.
They fed for ten days, then stopped eating and crawled restlessly until they grew moist, shortened,
PROTOPARCE CAROLINA 135
and lay on the earth provided to absorb the fluid ex- uding from them at this stage. The earth was not deep enough for burrowing, and the pupation could be watched as far as outer changes were concerned. In eight days the pup cast the larva-skin, and were green, becoming chestnut-brown far more quickly than celeus pup. They are shorter and smaller than celeus pupe, and have the tongue-case much shorter, less curved, and touching the wing-covers less than half- way down.
Celeus larve, after the fourth molt, vary in almost every way except the shape of the obliques Z, the chief point distinguishing them from carolina, as the red horn of carolina is usually given as the distinctive mark of that crawler. Whatever the shade of brown, black, olive, or green of the celeus larva, each oblique is always supplemented by a horizontal line at the lower end, making a Z with the oblique line. This is not the case with carolina. Celeus larve have great variety of color in their spiracles, too, some being black in white oval lines; others tan-colored, with a dark dot’ in the middle and a white or a black line around the edge; others orange, with a yellow-white dot at each end, in a white oval or in a gray one.
In our experience, the horn of carolina is the first distinguishing mark, but -we confess that, so great is the variety in the coloring of celews, we should not be overwhelmed with surprise if some day we found a celeus with a red horn.
The carolina moth is much browner and darker than celeus, and the orange spots on the abdomen are Jarger than those of celeus, while its general effect is
134 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
more mottled and less streaked. The moths fly at dusk and later, and may be caught near honeysuckles, phlox, lilies, and electric lights. They have great strength of wing-muscles and a quick, powerful flight. Their tongues are very long. The male’s antenne are biciliate, while the female’s are simple. In some places they are double-brooded, but we have not found any June brood in spite of all our searching. With us, in Massachusetts and Vermont, both carolina and celeus moths have been found from July till late Sep- tember, and the eggs or caterpillars from late July until the very end of October, without the interval there would be if there were two broods. Occasionally a moth has emerged from our pupze in November or December, but too late for another brood.
Protoparce carolina (tongue).
. SPHINX KALMIA#
GENUS, SPHINX. SPECIES, KAL’MIA@ (‘of laurel”).
“Sphinx” because the caterpillars rear the fore part of the body and rest in a position which Linneus thought suggestive of the sphinx, and “ kalmize” be- cause the caterpillars were first found on laurel, Kalmia latifolha. We have found them on lilae, ash, beach- plum, and fringe-tree, and others mention privet as their food-plant. They also are said to be double- brooded, but we have found the caterpillars only in August, September, and October, and the moths never emerged in the same year.
Their range is from Canada to Georgia, and west to Missouri, but they are not common. It is an event to find the larva, and we have caught but few of the fe- male moths. One laid us eggs on the 3d of Septem- ber — very pale green, oval eggs, which hatched seven days later, in the afternoon, having turned sordid white the day before.
The young caterpillars were three sixteenths of an inch long, and colorless until they ate, except the caudal horn, which was gray and curved forward. After feeding they were green, except the head, anal seg- ment, legs, and props, which were yellowish, and the
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136 CATERPILLARS AND THEIR MOTHS
gray horn, which was darkest at the tip. The horn was slender, smooth, blunt at the tip, and almost