Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1837 Excerpt:...the wings, more or less distinct. Cilia brown, spotted with white. Posterior wings brown, darkest in the middle, the shoulders being nearly black, with an indented narrow bar of ash colour running across them, from the middle of the anterior edges to the anal angle;.below this is a narrow black one, answering and joining to it. Under Side. Breast and abdomen ash-coloured. Anterior wings brown, without any marks or shades, except two very faint undulated dark lines crossing them. Posterior wings, next the body, ashcoloured; the remainder being like the anterior, with some faint dark lines crossing them. According to Abbot the caterpillar is pale green, with white lateral oblique stripes, and a pink tail. It is said to feed on the potato, tobacco, red pepper (Capsicum?), &c. One of these caterpillars, observed by Abbot, went into the ground on the 19th of June, and came out on the 15th of July; whilst another went in on the 8th of July, and came out on the 1st of August. The caterpillar is stated by the same author to be very destructive in plantations of tobacco, the cultivators being obliged to pick them carefully off the young plants. The chrysalis is of a chesnut colour, with a long nearly straight tongue case, extending to the middle of the breast, and clubbed at the end. The moth is generally seen in an evening,-sucking the James-town weed and gourd blossoms, and continues breeding all the summer; the moth is common in the West Indies, as well as in Georgia and Carolina. Dr. Brown says it is called the musquito hawk, from its appearing at that time of the evening when those insects abound, and being vulgarly but erroneously supposed to prey upon them. Abbot and Smith, loc. cit. Specimens of this American insect have from time to time been captured i...