ENTOMOLOGY IN OUTLINE — LEPIDOPTERA. 65 



of this group, its members while exceedingly minute are also exceedingly 

 destructive. The various species in this order are distinctly different 

 from those belonging to any other order, which accounts for the trouble 

 of locating them when there were only the seven orders in which to 

 place all insects, and the necessity at last of erecting an order for them. 

 These insects abound in flowers and flowering plants and can be 

 found in great quantities in many blossoms. In some sections they 

 infest pear, orange, and other fruit trees, and do much damage by 

 injuring the blossoms, as they bite into the essential organs and prevent 

 the fruit blooms from fertilizing and the fruit from setting. In the 

 vineyards of this State one of the leaf-hoppers is called a thrips, but 

 this is a misnomer, as the insect found in the vineyard is a hopper, and 

 belongs to the Homoptera. 



Order LEPIDOPTERA. 



(Butterflies and Moths.) 



A description of the members of this order is hardly necessary, as it 

 is the best known of all the insect tribe. The butterflies are especially 

 attractive to the non-scientific classes, as they comprise the most 

 -attractive and showy of all insects. We find them of all colors and all 

 combinations of color, and of such varied forms that one becomes 

 bewildered with their myriad beauties. They have been aptly termed 

 the flowers of the insect world, and, certainly, in their varied hues and 

 forms, they more resemble flowers than animals. Their name, Lepidop- 

 tera, is composed of two Greek words, lepis, a scale, and pteroii, a wing, 

 and means scaly, wings, from the fact that the wings, in insects belonging 

 to this order, are covered with minute scales. 



As a rule, it is not difficult to recognize a member of this order, for 

 while the species are very numerous, there are conspicuous general 

 characteristics in shape, wing formation, etc., which are so strongly 

 marked as to make them plainly recognizable even to the tyro. There 

 are, however, some minor exceptions to this statement in the wingless 

 forms, usually females, as the tussock-moth, the canker worm, etc., and 

 in the clear-winged moths, which so nearly resemble wasps that the 

 beginner in entomology might be pardoned for mistaking them. 



The order is again divided into two well-defined groups or suborders: 

 the moths, or Heterocera, meaning variable horns, from the great variety 

 of forms shown in their antennae, and the butterflies, or Rhopalocera, 

 or club-horns, in allusion to the form of their antennae. The butterflies 

 are all diurnal, or day-fliers, while the greater part of the moths are 

 nocturnal, or night-fliers. Some moths fly in the daylight and many 

 <xre on the wing during the twilight hours, between sundown and dark, 



