DILONCIIE. 21 



colour ; those on the fifth segment being tlie larger. The 

 horn, which is straight and slender, is brown. It feeds on vine 

 {Vi/is vinifera), whence its name; as well as on yellow lady's 

 bedstraw {Galiuin veruin). 



The male expands about two inches and a quarter, and the 

 female three inches. It is widely distributed throughout the 

 warmer parts of the Old World, but it is essentially a tropical 

 species, which migrates northwards in Central Europe in 

 warm summers, and it is a rare occasional visitor in England, 

 which is almost the northern limit of its range. The same may 

 be said of other widely-distributed Sphinges, which are occa- 

 sionally taken in England, such as Daplinis 7ieru, DilepJiila 

 livornka, D. eupJiorbicv, D. galii, and even of Phlegethoiitiiis 

 convolvuli and Manduca atropos ; but these will be specially 

 noted in their places. All these certainly breed here more 

 or less regularly, but their numbers are also recruited from 

 abroad ; and, if this were not the case, it is doubtful whether 

 some of them would be able to perpetuate themselves as 

 British species through the vicissitudes of a series of years. 



GENUS DILONCIIE. 

 Deilonchc, Grote, Hawk-Moths N. America, p. 30 (1886). 



Head of moderate size, not tufted ; tongue as long as the 

 body ; eyes naked ; thorax smooth ; abdomen slender, 

 tapering ; front tibire unarmed ; middle tibi^ with one pair of 

 unequal spurs ; hind tibiae with two pairs ; wings narrow ; 

 fore-wings somewhat sickle-shaped, with twelve nervures ; 

 margins entire. 



This genus includes several American species, with a 

 considerable general resemblance to each other. The type 

 is here figured. 



