LEPIDOPTERA. 261 



1. Spinners. [Bombyces.) 



The BoMRVCEs, so called from Bombjjx, the ancient name of 

 the silk-worm, are mostly thick-bodied moths, with antcnnec, 

 in the greater number, feathered or pectinated, at least in the 

 males, the tongue and feelers very short or entirely wanting, 

 the thorax woolly, but not crested, or very rarely, and the fore 

 legs often very hairy. Their caterpillars have sixteen legs, are 

 generally spinners, and, with few exceptions, make cocoons 

 within which they are transformed. 



This tribe has been subdivided into a number of lesser 

 groups or families ; but naturalists are not at all agi'ecd upon 

 the manner in which these should be arranged. We might 

 place at the head of the tribe those large moths, whose 

 Sphinx-like caterpillars are naked and warty, and which, in 

 the winged state, are ornamented with eye-like spots like the 

 Smerinthi ; or, we might place first in the series the moths 

 whose caterpillars ate wood-eaters, with the habits and trans- 

 formations of the jEg-erians ; or, we may begin with the smaller 

 species, with hairy caterpillars, whose habits and transfor- 

 mations arc like those of the Glaucopidians, and which re- 

 semble the latter closely in the winged state; and thus the 

 series, from Procris and other moth-like Sphinges to the true 

 Moths, will be uninterrupted. The latter, on the whole, seems 

 to be the most natural course, and it agrees with the arrange- 

 ment of Dr. Boisduval, which I shall follow, with some slight 

 changes only. 



Agreeably to this arrangement the first family of the Bom- 

 byces will be the Lithosians (Lithosiad.e), so named from 

 t\vo Greek words,* meaning a stone, and to live ; for the cater- 

 pillars of many of these insects live in stony places, and devour 

 the lichens growing on rocks. (Such also are the habits of 

 Glaucosis Pholits, one of the Glaucopidians.) On this account 

 they are not properly subjects for notice in this essay ; but as 

 some of the larger species are grass-eaters, are conspicuous 



* This is the derivation given by M. Godart. Hist. Nat. Lepidopt. de France. 

 Yol. v., p. 10. 



