The Moths and Butterliies 



399 



and strawberries, both wild and cultivated. Calocalpe iindidata (Fig. 578), 

 the scallop-shell moth, has pale yellowish-brown wings crossed by many 

 fine zigzag darker lines close together; its larva; feed on wild cherry and 

 live gregariously inside of a nest formed of leaves tied together by silken 

 threads. A very common little moth in meadows and gardens in summer 

 and fall is the chickweed-geometer, Hamatopis gralaria, with reddish- 



FlG. 576. 



.) 



J,-. i'li^- 577- Ho. 570- 



Fig. 576. — The currant-angerona, Angcrona crocataria. (.After Lugger; natural size. 

 Fig. 577. — The currant-endropia, Endropia armalaria. (After Lugger; natural size. 

 Fig. 578. — The scallop-shell geometer, C(i/oca//'e HHrfK/a(a. (After Lugger; natural size, 



vellow wings and two transverse bands and the outer margins pinkish 

 The chain-dotted geometer. Catena calenaria, expanding ij inches, with 

 white wings dotted with fine black points arranged in two lines and with 

 a few extra ones, appears sometimes, according to Lugger, in such very 

 great numbers as to look like a snow-storm; its larvas are pale straw-yellow 

 with two fine lines on the back and two on each side interrupted by two 



Fig. 579. — The diverse-lined geometer, Petrophora diversilineala. (.After Lugger; 



natural size.) 



large black dots, a pair on each segment; it feeds on hazel, blackberry, 

 raspberry, and other plants. 



A great host of somber-colored moths, blackish, grayish, or brownish, 

 with no conspicuous markings and only rarely any bright colors, compose 

 for the most part the family Noctuidae, the largest of all the families of moths. 

 Twenty-one hundred North American species — three times as many as 

 there are North American species of birds — belong to the single family 

 Noctuida?, and for the most part these two thou.sand mixed species must be 

 as one to the general collector and amateur. Few professional entomologists, 

 indeed, lay claim to a systematic knowledge of the group, or even care to 

 give to it the time necessary to acquire such a knowledge. Some of the 



