^^? i^5 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



OF 



BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 

 LE.-SEMIDIURNA. 



Family II.— PLATYPTEHICIDiE mihl 



yl«^eran<Esetaceous, short, pectinated in the males, slightly ciliated or subpecti- 

 nated in the females ; rarely subserrated. Palpi two, very short, not visible 

 from above, triarticulate, conical : maxiUw very short, almost obsolete, sub- 

 membranaceous : Amd small: iAoraa; simple, not crested nor tufted : ivings 

 ample, broad, mostly disposed in a nearly horizontal position during repose, 

 the anterior lying very little over the posterior; sometimes compressed; 

 the former with the apex of the hinder margin in most species falcate; the 

 hinder margin itself entire or dentate : abdomen rather stout, short, obtuse 

 at the apex in the females, and slightly tufted : legs short ; anterior tibia; 

 with a spine within ; intermediate with a pair of spurs at the apex ; posterior 

 also with a pair at the apex, and sometimes a second pair near the middle. 



Larva: with fourteen legs, naked, gibbous on the back, attenuated be- 

 hind, the tail simple, and without legs. Pupa slender, sprinkled with a 

 whitish or ashy powder, foUicuIated ; the foUiculus inclosed in a convoluted 

 leaf. 



The larvae of the insects of this family are remarkable for their 

 singular structure, which resembles that of the typical Notodontidrc, 

 to which group the Platyptericida? are thus allied, but from the habit 

 of the perfect insects, the breadth and tenuity of their wings, their 

 short legs, &c., I conceive them to be as nearly allied to the termi- 

 nating genera of the Geometridae; the larva of one genus of which, 

 Ennomos (Colposia, Hilhner*), is not very dissimilar to those of the 



* I propose to give at the end of this volume a synopsis of the indigenous 

 Lepidoptera, agreeably to the arrangement and nomenclature of Hiibncr in his 

 Verzeichniss bekanter Schmetterlinge, 1816, whose arrangement, however, 



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