LEPIDOPTERA. 



267 



this thread so badly that most of them leave it behind them wherever 

 they go." 



They are found on many trees, but particularly on the oak, the 



foHage of which they often entirely 

 ___^=--_ _ _^ . devour. They burrow into the 



ground to change into chrysalides, 

 and undergo all their metamor- 

 phoses in the course of the year. 

 Others do not become perfect in- 

 sects till the autumn, or sometimes 

 not even till the following spring. 

 A few assume the perfect state in 

 winter. There are, indeed, some 

 of these, such as the males of the 

 Bybernias, which fly about on the 

 foggy evenings of November. The 

 females of this genus have either 

 no wings at all, or else only rudi- 

 mentary ones. Two species, the Hybernia defoliaria, or Winter Moth, 

 and the Chimatobia brumata, abundant here, are very common in the 

 environs of Paris. 



M. Maurice Girard says, in his work on the metamorphoses of 



Fig. 262. — HyLeniia Icucopheana, male. 



Fig. 263. — Winter Moth {Hybernia 

 defoliarid), male. 



Fig. 264. — Winter Moth [Hybernia 

 defoliaria), female. 



insects, that the females of these moths can easily be found at the 

 beginning of November, in a very strange place, namely, on the gas 

 lamps of the public promenades ; for instance, along the roads in the 

 Bois de Boulogne. No doubt they had climbed up to this height, 

 attracted by the light, or perhaps had been carried thither by the 

 males, which fly, having wings. 



In February and March appear other analogous species. " We 

 may find," says M. Maurice Girard, "near Paris, in the meadows 

 which surround the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, at the 



