Polyphemus moth

Anne Roe is The Economist obituaries editor.

It was a huge Polyphemus silk moth, and it was kept in a mason jar in her classroom until it hatched.

When it hatched, its wings, which were meant to be wonderfully brown and velvety with a blue eye spot, had a varnish on them, which was to dry and then would enable the wings to spread and the moth to fly.

But the mason jar was too small, so when the moth tried to open its wings, it couldn't do so.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson.

The Luna and Polyphemus Moths The two silkworm moths which we figure this month both possess a point of excellence far in advance of any other of our native silkworm moths.

Luna, on account of its graceful form and delicate colors, and Polyphemus for the silk of its cocoons.

It seems that most persons who speak of the Luna Moth, Tropia Lunae, feel called upon to give a more or less poetic description of it this i hope has been rendered unnecessary by the coloured plate so that it will suffice simply to mention that the beautiful shade of green is of very rare occurrence among our larger moths and that no other has the long graceful tails on the hind wings a characteristic which adds greatly to the beauty of this insect the moth does not seem to be very abundant anywhere but when once seen will long be remembered on account of its great beauty the green and yellow colours are evidently very closely related because either one may to a greater or less degree replace the other so that some of the moths have quite a strong yellowish tinge one of our common swallow-tail butterflies iphicleides ajax possesses a very similar green color in its wings but does not seem to show this tendency to replace the green by yellow on the wings are four eye spots which are also found in polyphemus these are remarkable in that they are transparent in the centre this clear area in luna is quite small while in polyphemus it is about as large as the entire eye-spot of luna the legs are brown and coloured like the front edge of the fore-wings the hairs on the body and at the base of the wing are very long and are white or yellow the wing expanses range from three and three fourths to five and one half inches during april or may the mother moth lays her dark brown or chocolate-colored eggs upon hickory walnut beech oak and a few others of our forest trees the limited number of food plants is doubtless one reason for the rarity of the moths as compared with such a common and almost omnivorous larva of cecropia a single moth may lay about one hundred eggs which are smaller than those of polyphemus these hatch in about ten or fifteen days the larva making its escape by eating a circular hole in the shell occasionally a young larva may be seen crawling about for a short time carrying upon its head or tail the empty shell the adult larva is about three inches long of a delicate pale green color a color very difficult to preserve in the dead larva those on the plate have lost this delicate green and have become yellow but show the form perfectly this larva is very much like that of polyphemus but may be distinguished from it by possessing a longitudinal pale yellow lateral line which is not found in polyphemus since the cocoon is quite thin and contains but little silk it is considered of but little value this cocoon is spun among two or three weaves and is about two inches long some authors claim that the cocoon falls to the ground with the autumnal falling of the leaves others that it transforms on the ground among the fallen leaves the cocoon is quite similar to that of polyphemus but not so firmly attached when fixed to a stem the moths emerge in april and may there being only a single brood in the north while there are two in the south the color of the cocoon seems to be influenced in some way by the kind of food eaten by the larva cocoons made by larva which have been fed on hickory leaves have a darker color in the true silkworm moth this same influence has been noticed larvae fed upon the vine producing red cocoons on lettuce emerald green cocoons while those fed upon white nettle produce yellow green or violet cocoons it is necessary in order to procure these results that the larvae be fed upon the mulberry till about twenty days before the formation of the cocoon polyphemus the life history of this native silkworm telea polyphemus is by far the best known because many years ago it was carefully studied with the hope that it would prove an important silk insect this hope unfortunately has not been realized The moths as shown by the plate are really beautiful.