THE HAWK MOTHS {SPHINGFD.E). 223 



owe both their English and Greek appellations ; Choero- 

 campa, the name of the typical genus, means Hog cater- 

 pillar. These moths are chiefly remarkable for their 

 power of swift and long-sustained flight. The whole 

 sub-family throughout shows a tendency to bright colours 

 and distinct shades and bands in wing maculation. The 

 abdomen is rarely banded, and there are few sober grey 

 forms represented ; on the contrary, particularly in 

 America, some are of a most beautiful and graceful 

 description. Certain genera, as in the Ambulicinae, have 

 the anal segment of the abdomen in the males expanded 

 laterally, an aspect approaching that of Macroglossinse in 

 this respect. 



Sphingincr. 



When we turn to the Sphinginse, we find these, as a 

 rule, sober grey or brown, the usually moderately narrow 

 and pointed wings of even outer margin, not sinuate or 

 angulated as in the Choerocampinae. For the broad 

 shades or bands of the latter, we have here a maculation 

 consisting either of simple, undulated, transverse lines, 

 or of longitudinal, interspacial dashes. Sometimes we 

 get a mottled surface of grey and black without distinct 

 pattern ; the abdomen, too, is almost universally banded 

 or spotted ; and by these peculiarities in marking, and 



