_The Gamma Moth, noctua gamma_, derives its name from having on its primary wings, a figure stamped in gold, precisely similar to that letter of the Greek alphabet. In England it is very common. In some countries of Europe this moth in its caterpillar stage of existence, has been a scourge to the vegetation. In 1735 these insects increased so rapidly in France, that they excited serious fears of famine by their ravages in the fields and gardens. The roads were covered with them traveling from one field to another. In the kitchen gardens, they left nothing but the stalks of the plants. Mr. Reaumur calculated that a single pair of these moths might produce in one season eighty thousand caterpillars! Mr. Gosse found the gamma moth in Canada: “I have obtained several new species of _noctua_, among which is the _dusia gamma_ so common in England.” _The Blue Argus, polyommatus argiolus._—This pretty little blue butterfly is found also in America; it is mentioned by Mr. Gosse, who saw it in Canada, and is included among the insects of Massachusetts also, and doubtless it belongs to other parts of the United States. Its caterpillar feeds on the buckthorn and on the holly. _The Goat Moth, cossus ligniperda._—“The great goat moth, while yet a caterpillar, occupies in solitary darkness the trunk of willow, oak, or poplar. For three successive summers it is employed in eating into the solid wooden barrier which divides it from the sunny world—for as many winters it sleeps within one of the dark tunnels thus excavated by its powerful jaws; but after this extended period of repletion and repose, it scarcely lives over the same complement of weeks to exercise its broad, dusky pinions in the summer moonlight.” “A large, smooth, unsightly crawler, of a livid red and salmon color, black-headed, and black-clawed, this caterpillar swallows the chippings and dust made in his tunneling progress through the wood. Throughout the summer he thus eats his way, but in autumn prepares himself a broader chamber, which he hangs with a fabric as thick as broadcloth, and equally warm, composed of the raspings of wood scooped out of his cell, and united with the strong silk, which every species of caterpillar can spin.” For three or four years he thus continues in the tree chosen by the parent moth for his abode, and then “with bulky body, and dusky wings, from three to four inches in expansion, he is wont, about July, to emerge from his wooden cell.”—_Acheta Domestica._