i 9 2 THE STUDY OF INSECTS 



Family Micropterygid^e 

 The Mandibulate Jugatcs 



The members of this family are small insects which resemble tineid 

 moths in general appearance. As with other members of the suborder 

 Jugatae, the venation of the hind wings closely resembles that of the fore 

 wings (Fig. 331). But these insects differ from all other Lepidoptera in 

 that the adult moths have well-developed and efficient mandibles. This 

 remarkable character, together with the lack of certain internal organs, 

 has caused some authorities to take these moths out of the Lepidoptera 

 and to put them in a separate order. 



The abdomen of the female has ten segments but there is no oviposi- 

 tor. The adults feed on pollen. The larva? of our American forms do 

 not seem to have been observed. 



Family Eriocraniid^e 

 The Haustellate Jugates 



The members of this family, like those of the preceding one, are small 

 insects which resemble tineid moths in general appearance. In this 

 family the mandibles of the adult are vestigial; the maxilla? are formed 

 for sucking, each maxilla forming half of a long sucking-tube, as in higher 

 Lepidoptera; and the females have a piercing ovipositor. The jugal 

 lobe of the fore wing extends back above the base of the hind wing and 

 is clasped over an elevated part of the hind wing, thus being of the type 

 described as a fibula. 



The best known species, Mnewomca auricyanea, is gold with purple 

 spots and has a wing-expanse of about \ an inch. The larva mines in 

 the leaves of chestnut, oak and chinquapin, making a large blotch mine. 

 When grown it goes into the ground, spins a cocoon and changes to a pupa 

 in the following winter. 



The pupa has long, arm -like toothed mandibles, with which it cuts 

 the tough cocoon and with which it digs its way up to the surface of the 

 ground; the adult emerges in April. 



Family Hepialid^e 

 The Swifts or the Macrojugata, 



The members of this family are of medium or large size. Figure 332 

 represents in natural size one of the larger of the American species, but 

 many exotic species are larger than this one. Our smaller species have a 

 wing-expanse of at least one inch. Our best-known species are brown or 

 ashy-gray in color, with the wings marked with silvery-white spots. 



It is said that these moths fly near the earth, and only in the evening 

 after sunset, hiding under some low plant, or clinging to the stalk of an 

 herb during the day. Some of them fly with extreme rapidity, with an 

 irregular mazy flight, and have, therefore, been named swifts by col- 

 lectors. 



In the Hepialidae the posterior lobe of the fore wing is a slender. 



