ally obsolete structure of the mouth, which is often destitute of palpi; and the maxillæ, when present, are so small as to be useless, and not spirally folded up (fig. 105. 4. head of Saturnia Pavonia major beneath, showing the rudimental state of the mouth; in fig. 105. 1., head of Bombyx (Minyas) Polygoni Savigny, the labial palpi, fig. 105. 3., are distinct, but the maxillæ, fig. 105. 2., are very short); the body is very thick and hairy (fig. 105. 6. thorax of Saturnia Pavonia major, the striated part being one of the tegulæ, and the dotted part the metathorax); the antennæ of the males are generally very strongly bipectinated to the tip (fig. 105. 14. antenna of Saturnia Pavonia major fig. 106. 1. one of the joints of ditto showing its double bipectinations); the wings are large, and either extended horizontally or deflexed at the sides, the costa of the posterior pair extending beyond that of the anterior; the thorax is not crested, the legs are of the ordinary structure; but Dalman has described a North American species (B. cyllopoda) in which the hind legs are spurious, like the fore legs of the Nymphalidæ (Anal. Entomol. Obs. vol. ii. p. 102.). The larvæ are naked (fig. 105. 10. larva of Bombyx mori), and often have a transverse series of warts upon each segment, each furnished with a diverging coronet of hairs (fig. 105. 13. young larva of Saturnia Pavonia minor); they are 16-footed, having six pectoral, eight ventral, and two anal feet; they do not inhabit portable cases; their food consists of the leaves of various plants. They enclose themselves in cocoons of pure silk, frequently of a firm and rigid texture, and which is rarely subterranean. The pupæ are not armed with transverse series of rigid points upon the abdominal segments (fig. 105. 11. pupa of Bombyx Mori). The males, according to Mr. Stephens, in general fly swiftly in the day-time, from about noon to four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and again in the evening; but the females are very sluggish and inactive. The prevailing hues are grey or fawn colour, and many of the larger species have the wings ornamented with eyelike spots. The larger species of the family, which have the wings extended horizontally whilst in repose, were formed by Linnæus into a separate Guilding. Nat. Hist. of Oiketicus, in Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xv. Guérin, in Mag. Zool. 1881. (Descr. Gymnautocera.) Bulletin de Ferussac, May 1831. (Bombyx Hieracium); and the general works on Lepidoptera above referred to. section of his Phalænæ named Attacus (Saturnia, Schrank). Amongst these the giant Atlas-moth, Saturnia Atlas, from China, the S. Cecropia and Luna, which have the hind wings produced into a tail, and S. Cynthia and Mylitta, the cocoons of which are employed in India for the production of silk, are amongst the largest species. From a communication made to Latreille of a Chinese manuscript upon the subject of the silk trade, it appears that the caterpillars of these two species are the wild species of silkworm of China. The former species, B. Cynthia, is the Arrindi silkworm of India, of which, as well as of the Tusseh silkworm, Dr. Roxburgh published a long account in the Trans. Linnean Soc. vol. vii. with plates. For further details relative to the last-named species, see also Ann. Sci. Nat. Aug. 1831, and Bull. Sci. Nat. Ferussac, Sept. 1831. See also Col. Sykes's Memoir on the Kolisurra silkworm of the Deccan above referred to. Humboldt has also described a Mexican moth (Bombyx Madrono) which is social in its habits, the larva forming nests of a dense tissue and brilliant whiteness, which are employed by the natives in the manufacture of silk. (Political Essay of New Spain, vol. iii. p. 59.) The fine North American species, Saturnia Promethea, exhibits an interesting peculiarity of habit in the construction of its cocoon, which it forms within a leaf of the Sassafras tree, having previously, however, fastened the stalk of the leaf to the stem by a strong silken web, whereby it is prevented from falling with the other leaves. (Peale's Lepidopt. Americana, part i.) The majority of these species have the centre of the wings ornamented with a talc-like spot. Others have a large eye-like spot at the same place (Saturnia Pavonia minor, &c.). This species, which is the only example of this particular group found in England, and is one of our most beautiful moths, constructs a remarkably interesting cocoon, the extremity not being close, but terminated by a converging circle of very stiff hairs, which enables the insect to make its escape from within, but completely prevents all ingress. The larva of the beautiful American Saturnia Luna, distinguished for the length of the * See on the habits of this insect Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist., No. 6. A writer in the Entomol. Mag., vol. iii. p. 206., has stated the curious but rather doubtful fact, that a large caterpillar of this insect having formed its cocoon, produced two winged individuals, a male and a female. Kleesius also, as quoted by Kirby and Spence, asserts that he had once two specimens of Gastropacha quercifolia, tails of the hind wings, resembles that of the Emperor moth, except that the warts on the segments are smaller (Abbott and Smith). The common silkworm (fig. 105. 10.), which is the larva of Bombyx Mori (fig. 105. 12.), is too well known to need description. According to Latreille, who has minutely investigated the history of silk culture, this moth was a native of the northern provinces of China, whence, in the reign of Justinian, it was imported by the missionaries to Constantinople, and thence to Sicily, and to other parts of the south of Europe, where it has long been an extensive object of commerce, and where the greatest care is taken in the management and rearing of it. Silkworm gut, so much used by anglers, is also manufactured from the larvæ. It would be out of place in this work to enter into any details relative to the history of the silk trade, or of the manufacturing process. I shall therefore only allude to the remarkably sluggish character of the perfect insect, and the absence of any disposition on the part of the caterpillar to wander from the trays on which it is fed, peculiarities which eminently fit it, as suggested by Mr. Sells, for the subject of so extensive an occupation. The following stanza relative to the habits of the silkworm in the Welsh language is a literary curiosity, being entirely composed of vowels. O'i wiw wy i weu ê à, a'i weuau E' weua ei we aia', A'i weuau yw ieuau iâ. I perish by my art, Dig my own grave; The silkworm has been long known in the south of Europe to be subject to a disease called muscardine, which destroys the insect, and at the same time covers the body with a white efflorescence. The real nature of this disease remained unascertained until 1835, when M. Bassi proved it to be a minute fungus (Botrytis Bassiana) in a state of vegetation, which had by degrees occupied the whole of the interior of the body, and then burst through the skin. M. V. Audouin has followed up this singular discovery by numerous experiments and mi produced from one pupa, which was large, being full two inches long, and one thick. Wm. Knott, Esq. has informed me of an instance, in which two chrysalides of the Emperor moth were contained in one cocoon; and several (two, and even as many as three or four) chrysalides of the lackey-moth have been observed in a large common cocoon by Mr. Marshall, as he has himself informed me. croscopical researches, the result of which he has published in two Memoirs in the Annales des Sci. Nat. for 1838. The works of Count Dandolo on the silkworm (Engl. Transl.); the volume upon the silk manufacture in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia; the American work entitled the Silk Cultivator by Kenrick; the valuable analysis by Dr. Ure (Trans. Entomol. Soc. vol. i. App. p. 50.); Latreille in Ann. Sci. Nat., May 1831, and in his Cours d'Entomol.; a Memoir on silk worms in America in Trans. Philadelph. Soc., 1786, 1789, vol. i. 2d ed., and vol. ii. ; and a Memoir by Lavini in the Turin Transact. tom. xxxvii., 1834, may be consulted on the subject of the silk culture. Other species, which have the palpi porrected, and the hind wings in repose extending considerably beyond the costa of the anterior, form the genus Gastropacha; G. quercifolia, the type has all the appearance of a bundle of dried and shrivelled up leaves. The larva has the sides of the body furnished with fleshy appendages, concealing the feet; it is very large and hairy, as it is also in other species, called eggar-moths, from the cocoons being smooth, firm, and oval, and exactly resembling eggs (Lasiocampa Quercus, Trifolii, &c.). M. Guenée has made some observations on the construction of one of these cocoons (that of B. lanestris), with respect to the absorption and renewal of the very small quantity of enclosed air by the chrysalis. (Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1835, App. p. 63.) M. Villiers, in his Memoirs upon Bombyx Pityocampa and Chelonia pudica, has noticed a peculiarity in the structure of the underside of the breast, near the base of the abdomen, and which he likens to the drums of the Cicada. (Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1832, No. 2.) Some of the species (Clisiocampa Neustria, Eriogaster lanestris, &c.) are eminently gregarious, inhabiting a general nest in the larva state, which they extend from time to time, quitting it during the night in search of food, but constantly spinning a line of silk in order to direct them on their return before morning: they finally quit the nest before changing to pupæ. Some of these remain two or more years in the pupa state, especially Eriogaster lanestris, as described by Mr. Haworth (Lepid. Britann. p. 125.); and others (Cnethocampa processionea) are remarkable for the regular processionary marches of their social caterpillars. (Réaumur and Nicolai, Processions Raupe, Berlin, 1833.) Some of these caterpillars are very handsome, being longitudinally striped with different colours, whence they have obtained the name of lackey caterpillars. Clisiocampa Neustria has the instinct to arrange its eggs in a close spiral coil round the young branches of fruit trees. Many of these moths are remarkable for the instinct which the males possess of seeking their females from very great distances, and in situations apparently inaccessible to them, in great numbers. This habit, which collectors call "sembling," is turned to good account when they happen to rear the females of rare species, as they are sure to secure numbers of males if the females be taken to the woods. Mr. Haworth has given an account of this habit (Lepid. Britann. p. 82.), and mentions an instance in which a male moth found its way into the pocket of a collector, who happened to have a female in his collecting-box. The means by which these males are apprised of the presence of their partners at such distances is at present only conjectural. Other instances are recorded, where male moths have come down chimneys. (Davis, in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 4. Jurine has also described some singular instances of this kind in his Nouv. Méthode de classer les Hymenopt. Pref. p. 9.) A circumstance also, of great physiological interest, has been observed with several species of these insects, namely, the production of fertile eggs without impregnation. Burmeister has collected a number of such instances (Handbuch, Translation, p. 312.); and M. Carlier communicated to Lacordaire (Introd. à l'Entomol. tom. ii. p. 383.), that he had obtained, without impregnation, three generations of Hypogymna dispar*, the last of which consisted entirely of males, which, of course, put an end to the experiment. The transformations of many of the species of this family are illustrated in the works of Réaumur, De Geer, Rösel, Schäffer, Sepp, Hubner, Admiral, and other works expressly devoted to the metamorphosis of this order. The seventh family, ARCTIIDE, with which I have united the Notodontidæ of Stephens, nearly corresponds with the third section of the Nocturna of Latreille, or the Pseudo-Bombyces, and comprises those species which have the wings deflexed in repose, * Mr. Davis also informed me of a similar occurrence, observed by Mr. Tardy, in one of the eggar moths. |