ORDER LEPIDOPTERA 
SUBORDER HETEROCERA (MOTHS) 
FAMILY I. 
THE SPHINGID 7 E (HAWKMOTHS) 
“ The Sphinx is drowsy, 
Her wings are furled.”—E merson. 
The moths composing this family vary greatly in size. Some 
African species are very little more than an inch in expanse of 
wings. Those which occur in North America are medium-sized 
or large. 
The body is relatively very stout, the abdomen conic, cylin- 
dric, or flattened on the ventral surface, always protruding far 
beyond the hind margin of the secondaries, sometimes adorned 
with lateral or terminal tufts capable of expansion. The thorax 
is stout and often advanced beyond the insertion of the wings. 
The head is large and generally prominent. The eyes are often 
large, prominent, and generally naked, never hairy. The palpi 
are well, but never excessively, developed. 
The proboscis is generally long, some¬ 
times much longer than the body, but in a 
few genera among the Ambulicince greatly 
reduced and even obsolete. The antennae 
are well developed, stouter in the male 
than in the female sex, thickening from the 
base to the middle, or in some genera to 
nearly the end, usually hooked at the ex¬ 
tremity, sometimes merely curved. The 
joints of the antennae in the case of the males 
of some of the subfamilies are equipped at either end with pecul¬ 
iarly arranged fascicles of projecting hairs, or cilia, the arrangement 
Fig. 20.—Greatly 
magnified view of 
the under side of 
three joints of the 
antenna of P. quin- 
quemaculatus . 
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