NO. 4 FEEDING MECHANISM OF LEPIDOPTERA SCHMITT 9 



median sagittal cut, and then, using either half of the head, to remove 

 the compound eye, the brain, suboesophageal ganglion, and the suck- 

 ing pump. 



Tineidae: In the females of the common Yucca moth, Pronuha 

 yuccasella, all three pairs of proboscis extensors are present, very 

 much as described above. There is a single muscle at the base of 

 each maxillary palpus and each maxillary tentacle. The common 

 clothes moth, Tineola, lacks the cranial proboscis extensors, but other- 

 wise its musculature is complete. In certain other Tineidae, determined 



Fig. 4. — Diagram of the action of the proboscis extensor muscles of the right 

 halt of the head, mesal view. 



A, proboscis coiled. B, proboscis e.xtended by blood forced into it by com- 

 pre.ssion of stipes (see fig. 2). 



to family only, there are no tentorial muscles but only the cranial 

 proboscis extensors, a very unusual condition. 



Coleophoridae: A number of coleophorids, determined to family 

 only, were found to possess both pairs of tentorial proboscis exten- 

 sors, but to lack the cranial proboscis extensors. 



Limacodidae: A single representative, Eiiclea cloris indetenninia, 

 was studied. This moth has practically no proboscis, but only two 

 very small lobes, each a remnant of a proboscis unit. A single pair of 

 tentorial proboscis extensors is all that is left of the maxillary mus- 

 culature. 



Oecophoridae: A species of the genus Agonopterix, with a well- 

 developed proboscis, was also examined. All three pairs of extensors 



