276 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



front of this rather broadly paler. The hind-wings are yellowish- 

 white. There is a white anal tuft. The female is usually smaller 

 and paler yellow than the male, with snow-white hind-wings. 



The moth appears at the end of May, and in June. The 

 larva lives in reeds. 



FAMILY PTEROPHORID.^. 



This Family was formerly placed at the end of the 

 Lepidoptera, between the Tinece and the Omeodidce ; but the 

 moths are now considered to be nearly allied to the Pyralida^ 

 on account of their long, slender, body, antennae, and legs, 

 with strong spurs, and the long and rather narrow wings, which 

 are held extended like those of a Crane-Fly, or Daddy Long- 

 legs, which the moths greatly resemble when at rest. But the 

 chief character which distinguishes these moths from nearly 

 all other insects, is that, in most of the species, the fore-wings 

 are more or less deeply cleft in two, and the hind-wings are 

 divided, almost to the base, into three distinct feathers. 



The larvse have sixteen legs, and are hairy, as are also some 

 of their pupae. 



GENUS ALUCITA. 



y4/?/^/Vrt!, Linn?eus, Syst.Nat. (ed. x.), i. p. 542 (1758) ; Poda, Mus 

 Grsec. p. 94 (1761); Treitschke, Schmett. Eur. ix. (2), 

 p. 225 (1833), 7iec Fabriciiis; nee Stephens. 



F/erophorJis, pt. Geoffroy, Ins. Paris, ii. p. 90, (1762). 



The type of this genus is the following : — 



THE WHITE-PLUME MOTH. ALUCITA PENTADACTYLA. 

 {Flate CLVIIL, Fig. 9.) 

 Alucita pentadadyla^ Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. (ed. x.), i. p. 542, 

 no. 304 (1758) ; id. Faun. Suec. p. 371, no. 1457 (1761) , 

 Hiibner, Eur. Schmett. ix. fig. i (1800); Treitschke, 

 Schmett. Eur. ix. (2), p. 249 (^1833). 



