240 



The Orders of Insects 



The distribution of the family is as wide as that of the Eggars. In 

 several instances the females are wingless. They often have a thick 

 tuft of hair at the tip of the hind-body ; this serves as a covering for 

 the eggs. 



Hypsidae. — The Hypsidte are a family of tropical moths agreeing 

 closely with the LymantriidjE in their wing-neuration, but dis- 

 tinguished by the long upturned palps of the second maxilla whose 

 naked terminal segments reach above the level of the head ; the 

 sucking first maxills are moreover well-developed. The larvse are 

 only sparsely covered with hair and the cocoon is slight. The wings 

 are usually brown or yellow in hue, spotted with black or streaked 

 with white. The Hypsidae range over the tropics of the Old World 

 from Africa to Northern Australia. 



Arctiidse. — The ArctUJa or TiGER-MoTHS form a very large family 



characterised by the coal- 



I 1 escence of the sub-costal 



nervure of the hindwing 

 with the radial for the 

 basal part of its course, so 

 that it seems to arise from 

 the middle of the cell. In 

 other respects the wing- 

 neuration is much as in the 

 Lymantriids. A frenulum 

 is present and the first 

 maxillae are well-developed. 

 The larvs are often hairy. 

 Brightly-coloured wings — 

 scarlet, orange or yellow 

 often streaked or spotted 

 with black — are character- 

 istic of this family (fig. 132) 

 which ranges through all 

 parts of the world. 



Noctuidae. — The 

 Noctuida or OwL-MOTHS are 

 the largest and most dominant family of the Lepidoptera. Though 

 characterised by dusky wing-patterns and nocturnal habits, they are 

 nearly allied to the Arctiida whence they may be distinguished by 

 the sub-costal nervure of the hindwing anastomising with the radial 

 only near the base of the cell. In the forewing the fourth and 

 fifth radial nervures fork from the third which is connected by 

 a cross-nervule with the second. The frenulum is present and 

 the first maxillae are well-developed. The larvae are, as a rule, 

 only slightly hairy ; ten prolegs are usually present, but some- 

 times the pairs on the third and fourth hind-body segments are 

 wanting. The pupa is sometimes naked and subterranean, some- 

 times enclosed in a cocoon made partially of leaves etc. on the 



Fig. 132. — c. Tiger Moth, Phragtnaiobia 

 ^tiliginosa (Linn.), Europe, a. caterpillar ; 

 b. cocoon with pupa. Slightly enlarged. 

 From Lugger, Insect Life, vol. 2 (U.S. 

 Dept. Agr.). 



