The caterpillar of this very conspicuous moth feeds upon the red oak (Quercus rubra, Linn.), and other species of the same genus. The caterpillars represented by Abbot are considerably different in colour; one being dark-coloured, but covered over with minute yellow spots; and the other yellow, with a slender, dorsal, and two broader lateral black lines. The head is red, and each segment is furnished with a transverse series of tubercles, {46}emitting spinose setæ. It is, I presume, by the assistance of these setæ that "the caterpillar stings very sharply," as stated by Abbot. When small the whole brood lives together, but they disperse as they grow larger. One of these larvæ, in Virginia, went into the ground on the 1st of July, and the moth came out on the 20th of October; whilst in Georgia another buried itself on the 14th of June, and the fly did not appear until the 8th of December; after which other individuals kept coming out from time to time until the 16th of February. The male appears by day, and flies very swiftly, mounting and descending. The moth is called in America the Buck-fly, from an erroneous idea that its caterpillars are bred in the heads of the buck, which blow them out of their nostrils. This opinion originates from the fly coming out in the rutting season whilst the bucks are pursuing the does; the hunters therefore take notice of the insect in order to know the proper season for their sport, which is later in Georgia than in Virginia, as is also the appearance of the moth. They are much more plentiful in the last-mentioned country. (Abbot, loc. cit.) The specific name of Drury having the priority, I have retained it; although that subsequently proposed by Fabricius is far more expressive, recalling, as Sir J. E. Smith observes, the idea of a fair flower which had "by gloomy Dis been gathered," now become as grizly as the grim monarch of the infernal regions himself. EREBUS EDUSA. Plate XXIV. fig. 4. ORDER: Lepidoptera. SECTION: Nocturna. FAMILY: Noctuidæ, _Leach_. GENUS. EREBUS, _Latr._ Thysania, _Dalm._ Phalæna (noctua), _Drury_. EREBUS EDUSA. Alis castaneis fusco irroratis, anticis maculis nonnullis baseos alterisque duabus majoribus apicalibus; apiceque posticarum (nigro punctato) albis. (Expans. Alar. 2 unc. 2 lin.) SYN. Phalæna (Noctua) Edusa, _Drury_, _App. vol._ 2. HABITAT: New York. _Upper Side._ Antennæ brown and filiform. Thorax, abdomen, and wings of a fine red sandy brown colour; the first ring of the abdomen with an ash-coloured spot. Anterior wings with two whitish oblong spots on the external edges of each; one near the tips, the other at the lower corners. A small whitish bar crosses these wings about a quarter of an inch from the body; and next the shoulders is a spot of the same whitish colour. Posterior wings brown, with an oblong whitish spot placed along the external edges, reaching from the abdominal almost to the upper corners. Cilia brown.