Upper Side. Antennæ filiform. Head and thorax reddish brown. Abdomen clay-coloured. Anterior wings brown orange, with five small dark lines crossing from the anterior to the posterior edges. Posterior wings clay-coloured, fringed with orange brown.
Under Side. Tongue indistinct. Breast and legs red brown. Abdomen and posterior wings clay-coloured. Anterior ones brown orange, without any marks or lines thereon. Wings a little dentated; especially in the anterior wings.
The larva of this insect is long, smooth, and shining, of a black colour, with eight longitudinal continuous yellow lines, with the base of the legs and a spot on the neck red. When alarmed it throws up its head and tail into the air. From the structure of the larva it is therefore nearly allied to Ptilophora and Petasia, Steph., and not to the buff tip-moth (Pygæra bucephala). Its food, according to Abbot, consists of the Andromeda mariana, vulgarly called the male hackleberry, which grows round ponds and on the margins of running streams; it eats also several species of walnut and oak. One went into the ground on the 31st of July, and the moth came out the 23rd of August; another went in the 8th of June, and came forth the 3rd of July. They likewise sometimes go into the ground in autumn, and come out in the spring. The whole brood of caterpillars feed together in society. Abbot also states, that when they eat walnut leaves they are always black, with white hairs;[[3]] when their food is the oak, they are more yellow.
HYDROCAMPA? NIVALIS.
Plate [XIV]. fig. 4.
Order: Lepidoptera. Section: Nocturna. Family: Pyralidæ, Leach.
Genus. Hydrocampa? Latr. Cataclysta, Hübn. Steph. Phalæna (Pyralis), Drury.
Hydrocampa? Nivalis. Alis margaritaceo-albis, ciliâ anticarum fuscâ.
Syn. Phalæna (Pyralis) Nivalis, Drury, App. vol. 2.
Habitat: New England.