110 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the antennje have a stout chib, which either tapers rapidly or 

 is devoid of a crook ; the hind wings are usually horizontal 

 in rest ; the eggs are smooth, usually broader than high ; and 

 the larvae " feed on Graniineae, and generally construct 

 vertical nests among the blades." 



The eggs of the Castnians are, so far as I am aware, 

 unknown and undescribed. In both butterflies and moths 

 they present an infinite variety in form, in sculpture, and in 

 the manner in which they are laid. As a rule, however, those 

 of the larger moths are either ovoid, spherical, or flattened, and 

 rarely subconical or sculptured; while those of buiterfles are 

 more often conical, and present greater variety in form and 

 sculpture. The eggs of Hesperians are subconical, and those 

 of the Astyci, as we have just seen, in being smooth and 

 broader than high, agree exactly with those of Yuccae. 



The larvae of the Castnians are, according to Boisduval, 

 endophytous, boring the stems and roots of Orchids and other 

 plants, like the Sesians and Hepialians, and like Yuccas. 

 But they are ornamented with the ordinary horny piliferous 

 spots or warts which characterize Heterocerous larvae, and 

 have a horny anal plate. Butterfly larvae, on the contrary, 

 rarely possess these warts, but frequently have the body 

 uniformly beset superiorly with close-shorn bristles as in 

 Yuccae, such bristles generally springing from minute papillae. 

 The newly-hatched larvae of the two divisions approach each 

 other more nearly in general appearance, as all animals do, 

 the farther we go back to the commencement of individual 

 life ; but though the newly-hatched larva of Yuccae bears a 

 general resemblance to the same stage in many endophytous 

 Heterocerous larvae {e.g. Xyleutes Cossus), yet in the stiff 

 hairs springing from the general surface, or from very minute 

 points, instead of from distinct tubercles, it agrees with the 

 Rhopalocera. The legs, both false and true, together with 

 their armature and the trophi, are so extremely variable in 

 both divisions that comparisons can hardly be instituted. 

 The endophytous habit, though very exceptional, is found in 

 butterflies {e.g. Thecla Isocrates, Fabr.i see Westwood's 

 Intr., ii., p. 369). None of the Heterocerous borers, so far as 

 my experience goes, line their burrows continuously with a 

 matting of silk ; but use the silk very sparingly, or not at all, 

 till about ready to pupate. The larva of Yuccae, for the most 



