BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. 



LEPIDOPTERA 



Alost students of insects start by collecting Butterflies 

 and Moths and some people act as though adult Lepidop- 

 tera are the only " bugs " worth looking at. It is true that 

 most butterflies and many moths are among the beautiful 

 things of this earth, when they are mature, but still 



"And what's a butterfly? At best, 

 He's but a caterpillar, drest." 



and, until you get the right viewpoint, caterpillars are not 

 so pretty. Personally, I think the craze for Lepidoptera 

 is overdone. Compared with many other insects, they 

 are uninteresting; the adults are not given to doing things 

 much more exciting than flitting about, mating, and laying 

 eggs in a relatively common-place way. However, it is 

 only in comparison with some of the other insects that 

 they are uninteresting 



"How happy could I be with either, 

 Were t'other dear charmer away!" 



and, as this little book aims to obey vox populi, I have 

 given Lepidoptera what seems to me relatively large 

 but all too small consideration. Unless otherwise stated, 

 the descriptions of larvas refer to full-grown specimens, 

 younger ones differ somewhat; and "food" means the food 

 of larvae. 



The scientific name of this Order means " scaly- winged " 

 and refers to the fact that the hairs which cover the wings 

 are flattened or scale-like. It is these scales which give 

 color to the wing, as may be seen in Plate I which shows 

 the wings of one side denuded. We may accept two sub- 

 orders: Rhopalocera and Heterocera. The "cera" in 

 these names means "horn" and refers to the antennas; 

 the "Rhopalo" means "club," and the "Hetero" means 

 "otherwise, " in the same sense as when we say " Orthodoxy 

 is my doxy and heterodoxy is another kind of doxy." 

 Butterflies have club-shaped antennas, a knob at the 

 extreme end, and belong to the Rhopalocera. Moths 

 are Heterocera: some of them, especially the males, having 

 feathered antennae; some having thread-like antennae; 



