GENUS. PETASIA? _Stephens._ Phalæna (Noctua), _Drury_.
PETASIA? MINISTRA. Alis anticis rufescenti-fulvis, strigis quinque
transversis, posticis pallidioribus [female]. (Expans. Alar. 2 unc.)
SYN. Phalæna Noctua Ministra, _Drury, App. vol._ 2.
Phalæna Ministra, _Abbot & Smith Ins. Georg. t._ 81. _Oliv. Enc. Méth._
5. 69. 155.
HABITAT: New York.
_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.
{28}_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.