224 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Sub-family Cossince. 



The larva and moth are long-bodied, and this group is characterized 

 by the former being internal feeders. They are brown and livid in color 

 and coleopterous-looking, as are internal feeders generally, belonging to 

 whatever order of insects. They have this habit in common with 

 Castnia, and Sesia, but this has probably survived, while the other 

 characters have differentiated so that we cannot consider the habit as 

 uniting them in .a modern family. The female Cossus has an external 

 ovipositor, which is an index for the habit of the caterpillar. The ocelli 

 are wanting and the tongue is quite rudimentary. The male antenna? are 

 pectinate, the wings are somewhat narrow and the habitus is spongi- 

 form. I have watched the exclusion of Cossus from the cocoon, the very 

 active and moveable chrysalis being forced out into the air before the 

 shell is broken. Dr. Bailey gives a good account of the transformations 

 of Bailey's Goat Moth, Cossus ce?itere?isis of Lintner. We have repre- 

 sentatives of the European genera Cossus and Hypopta, while 

 PrionoxysUis robinice, the Locust Goat Moth, seems to me decidedly a 

 distinct form of North American origin. 



Sub-family Hepialince. 



In this group we have, without a doubt, the lowest Spinners. The 

 long thorax, with its subequal metathorax, draws the insertion of primary 

 and secondary wings apart. The subequal wings with pointed tips and 

 the 12-veined secondaries, the short antennae, spurless tibiae are sugges- 

 tive of the Neuroptera. The distribution of the group is very general 

 throughout the world ; and this fact, together with the striking structural 

 resemblance of its members, leads us to believe we have to do with an 

 old and long preserved type of moth. The caterpillars are root feeders, 

 like those of the Cossince, sixteen footed, naked, yellowish. The eggs are 

 remarkable for their fineness, looking like gunpowder. The cocoon is 

 subterranean, a cell lined with silk. We have very fine species in North 

 America, referred by Dr. Packard to Sthenopis, but which, notwithstand- 

 ing their size, seem to me congeneric with the European Hepialus humuli. 

 The limits of the genus may be reached with the beautiful H. auratus, 

 which has a structural ally figured by Herrich-Schaeffer from Brazil. The 

 species are generally rare ; the moths fly in the dusk of evening and are 

 an object of interest with most collectors. 



