. As nature shows them : moths and butterflies of the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains : with over 400 photographic illustrations in the text and many transfers of species from life. Lepidoptera; Nature prints. 102 MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. movements of the males, who seem to scent them out, fluttering near the spot wliere the female rests concealed on a scru]>oak. Next in order comes the group of mollis called Attaci, which includes many of the largest silk-producing species. Attacus eecropia is our largest native silk-spinning insect, and easily holds its place among the giant lepi
. As nature shows them : moths and butterflies of the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains : with over 400 photographic illustrations in the text and many transfers of species from life. Lepidoptera; Nature prints. 102 MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. movements of the males, who seem to scent them out, fluttering near the spot wliere the female rests concealed on a scru]>oak. Next in order comes the group of mollis called Attaci, which includes many of the largest silk-producing species. Attacus eecropia is our largest native silk-spinning insect, and easily holds its place among the giant lepidoptera of the world. Specimens are occasionally taken six and one-lialf or even seven inches from tip to tip of their extended wings ; and were it not so common, it would he much higher piized l)y collectors. When fresh from the cocoon, its wings (still soft, hut fully expanded) have the a})peara]ice of being a part of some rich and heavy fabric, and a gentle- man with whom I am acquainted having interests in a woollen mill, remarked, on seeing one of these grand moths for the lirst time, ••'Now" if I could manufacture a piece of goods like that, I think it would sell.'' The sulxlned colors and the delicately traced patterns of many of the moths would, if imitated in fabrics, give greater variety and more artistic effects to the matei-ials used for our adorn- ment and cond'ort. The female eecropia moth, the bulk of whose enormous body is composed almost wholly of eggs (two or three hundred in numl)er), lays them singly or at the most two or three together on the under side of the leaves of the food plant. Tliese eggs are circular in shape, slightly flattened above and below, and. Ijarva of Attacus eecropia. are creamy-white in color. The young caterpillars make their ap})ear- ance in ten or twelve days and are at first dark browai or black, covered with minute tubercles and stout black spines. At each moult they change in color, and when three-quarters of an inch long
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbayerfrederickmformer, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
