Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/234

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184
ECNOMIDEA PITHECIUM.

sable to assign it a new generic name, as has been done above. Altogether only three of these curious moths have fallen under our observation, and they have so many points in common, that they may be all included, at least provisionally, in the present genus. The perfect insects are in no way remarkable, but the caterpillars are furnished with long lateral appendages, commonly curved backwards, and so disposed as to take away all resemblance to a lepidopterous larva. So much is this the case, that Madame Merian, speaking of the one she has figured, says that she found this rare animal on a citron, and although it was entirely different from a caterpillar, it produced a very pretty moth. Her delineation was the first that appeared of one of these caterpillars, and it seems to have attracted so little attention, that we are not aware that even a specific name has been given to it. Stoll figured another, which he found to produce the moth described by Cramer under the name of Phal. (Bombyx) Hipparchia (pl. 185, fig. D). The third, which has been engraved on the accompanying plate, was figured by Abbot and Smith in their joint work on the Lepidoptera of Georgia.

All these caterpillars are rather of small size; have the head minute and retractile as in Limacodes; the body somewhat flat, and on each side are three long projecting appendages covered with hair, having a small fleshy protuberance between them terminating in a hair; and there are two other projecting pieces, of intermediate size, behind the