CHAPTER V 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



Caterpillars. — Butterflies. — Skippers. — Hawk-Moths. — /Egeriaxs or 

 Borixg-Caterpillars. — Glaucopidians. — lIoTHs. — Spinners. — Litho- 



SIANS. — TlGER-JIOTHS. — ErMINE-MoTHS. — TuSSOCK-MoTHS. — LaCKEY- 



Moths. — Lappet-.Moths. — Saturnians. — Ceratocampians. — Carpenter- 

 ]\ioths — psychians. -r- notodontiaxs. — owl-moths. — cut-worjis. — 

 Geojieters, or Span- Worms, and Canker- Worjis. — Delta-Moths. — 

 Leaf-Rollers — Bud-Moths. — Fruit-Moths. — Bee-Moths. — Corn-Moths. 

 — Clothes-Moths. — Feather-winged Moths. 



THERE are perhaps no insects which are so commonly 

 and so nniversally destructive as caterpillars ; they are 

 inferior only to locusts in voracity, and equal or exceed them 

 in their powers of increase, and in general are far more 

 widely spread over vegetation. ' Caterpillars are the young 

 of butterflies and of moths ; and of these, five hundred spe- 

 cies, which are natives of Massachusetts, are already known 

 to me, and probably there are at least as many more kinds 

 to be discovered within the limits of this Commonwealth.^ 

 As each female usually lays from two hundred to five hun- 

 dred eggs, one thousand different kinds of butterflies and 

 moths will produce, on an average, three hundred thousand 

 caterpillars ; if one half of this number, when arrived at 



[ 1 The number of species in the United States may fairly be estimated at 3,500, 

 or even more. My Catalogue, published by the Smithsonian Institute, contains 

 the names of nearly 1,800 already described by various authors, exclusive of 

 Microlepidoptera, which is a numerous family of itself, and comparatively little 

 progress has as yet been made in the discovery of our indigenous species gen- 

 erally. The latest and most complete work on German and Swiss Lepidoptera 

 ( Die Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, von H. v. Heinemaim, Brunswick, 

 1859) gives 1,387 species, exclusive of Microlepidoptera, in those two countries 

 alone, and we can confidently reckon on finding over three times that number in 

 the United States. — JIorris ] 

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