THE LEPIDOPTERA. 



75 



Many females have no wings, and others are so imperfectly 

 developed that they can hardly be distinguished from larvae. 



It is evident, then, that there is design in the decorations 

 of the Lepidoptcra ; that they are for the good of the insect* 

 that they vary under certain conditions of life, the other struc- 

 tures remaining the same ; that they have some reference to 

 sex ; that they are inherited, variations and all ; and that, 

 besides all this, they are proofs of the high art in Nature, and 

 the beauty of God's thoughts. 



MOTH OF Sphinx Hgusm (privet moth), 



showing on one side the "catch" of the lower wing fitted into a flat ring in the 

 upper one ; and on the other side, the catch out of the ring, and the wings separated. 



There is a curious structure which is found on the wings of 

 those Lcpidoptera that fly very strongly and rapidly, and not in 

 the jerking, irregular manner of butterflies. A sort of hook arises 

 from one of the nervures of the hind wing, and fits into a ring 

 on the large nervure of the front one. Both wings act then very 

 strongly together. 



As a general rule, which is subject to a few exceptions, the 

 diurnal Lcpidoptera — the butterflies — do not have this structure, 

 and they are therefore classified as AcJialitioptera — wings without 

 hooks. The rest of the Lepidoptcra are Chalinopterous, and have 

 the strengthening structures. 



