4.06 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 
scales. Mr. Stephens, to whom we are indebted for the establish- 
ment of this family, observes, that there is considerable diversity 
of habit amongst these insects, some of them residing in the larva 
state on flowers, upon which they subsist: others are found within 
the surfaces of leaves, devouring only the parenchyma; some form 
extensive webs, and live in society ; others are solitary. Amongst the 
subcutaneous species are some of the most brilliant of the Lepi- 
doptera, their wings being ornamented with highly polished metallic 
scales, and some of them being extremely varied in the number of 
their tints; others, again, are very plain; the former set have 
generally drooping palpi; the latter ascending recurved ones. (lust. 
Haustell. vol. iv. p. 196.) 
The typical insects of this family, forming Latreille’s genus Ypo- 
nomeuta, are amongst the largest in the family, having the fore wings 
long, and convoluted when at rest, and the posterior large, and with 
moderate ciliz. They are generally of white or slate colours with 
black spots, whence their names of small ermine moths; _ the larvae 
(fig. 112. 6.) reside in large societies under a common web on various 
fruit trees, and especially on whitethorn hedges, which are some- 
times entirely defoliated by them. I have also seen the apple trees, 
along the sides of the roads in France, equally deprived of their leaves 
by these insects, and festoons of their webs suspended from the tree, 
and clothing the surface of the ground beneath the trees. These 
larve are of a slate colour with black dots, and let themselves down 
to the ground when alarmed. ‘They have six pectoral, eight ventral, 
and two anal feet. They form their cocoons in company together, 
in the midst of their webs (Westwood, in Gard. Mag. Oct. 1837 ; and 
Dahlbom, in Swed. Trans. 1835). Mr. Lewis ( Trans. Ent. Soe. vol. i. 
p- 22.) has published an account of the habits of this insect, in order to 
account for the sudden appearance of the “blight,” as the young brood 
of larvee are termed. M. Habenstreit of Munich, by compelling these 
caterpillars to spin their webs on paper, has been enabled to obtain a 
sufficient quantity of silk to manufacture into various articles. (Literary 
Gazette, Nov. 1826.) M. Lenormand also presented a memoir on this 
subject to the “‘ Academie,” which was reported on by Latreille and 
Bosc, on 27th Nov. 1826. Other species, referred to this genus by 
most authors, are solitary in the larva state. 
The species of the genus Depressaria Haw. are distinguished, as 
the name implies, by their flat broad body and horizontally carried 
