THE PTEROPIIORINA. 1 55 



feathers of microscopic size. The Ptcrophora have the first 

 pair of Avings divided into two and the second pair into three 

 portions. These insects have also a long trunk and long hind 

 legs, which are furnished with spines. They have a peculiar 

 sort of flight, jerking about here and there, and some of them 

 are called ghosts by country people. The white Ptcrophorus, 

 which is called pentadaciylus, because the wings are in five divi- 

 sions, is perfectly white in colour, and flics about hedges and 

 banks, with the dark-coloured leaves of which it forms a striking 

 contrast in the eventide. The caterpillar, which is marked with 

 green, white, and yellow rays, lives upon the bindweed, and 

 hangs itself up when about to undergo metamorphosis into a 

 chrysalis by a silken girdle, in the same manner as the cabbage 

 caterpillars. 



The Orneodcs have their wings, as may be seen in the 

 engraving, very differently arranged to the species of Ptcro- 

 phorus, for each one presents the appearance of six small but 

 beautifully fringed feathers, and there being twelve on each side 

 the insect really has twenty-four of them. When the moth alights, 

 or is disposed to be quiet, it folds up these pretty feathery wings, 

 just as if they were portions of a fan. The moths have no trunks, 

 and they deposit their eggs here and there upon the flowers of 

 the honeysuckle. 



The small caterpillar crawls inside the calyx and eats it from 

 within, and when it has attained its full growth spins a small 

 cocoon. 



The silkworm moth's metamorphoses are so well known that 

 they may be conveniently considered as the normal or usual 

 phenomena with which to compare those of all other CJialinoptera. 

 The transformation into the chrysalis state during the summer, 

 and the rapid metamorphosis into the moth, appear necessary, 

 in order that the eggs should be laid so as to be hatched on the 

 first appearance of the leaves in the next spring. The delicate 

 moth could not hybernate, and the chrysalis could not live in 

 its cocoon all through the winter like those of many other 

 genera. So the silkworm embryos in the ^gg have a long time 



