284 Catalogue of North American Sphinges. 
rapidly vibrating wings above the blossoms, they might readily 
be mistaken for humming-birds. The A¢gerie are also diurnal 
in their habits. Their flight is swift, but not prolonged, and they 
usually alight while feeding. In form and color they so much 
resemble bees and wasps as hardly to be distinguished from them. 
The Smerinthi are heavy and sluggish in their motions. They 
fly only during the night, and apparently take no food in the 
winged state, their maxille or tongues being so short as to be 
useless for this purpose. The Glaucopidide, or Sphinges with 
feathered antenne, fly mostly by day, and alight to take their 
food like the Agerie, to which some of them bear a resemblance, 
while others have nearly the form of Phalene or moths, with 
which also they agree in their previous transformations. 
SYNOPSIS OF THE FAMILIES AND GENERA. 
It was not my intention originally to give here the characters 
of the genera, but to refer the student for them to the works of 
Latreille and other entomologists. Upon further consideration, 
however, I have thought that the labor of determining our Sphin- 
ges by means of the catalogue would be much abridged, if a sy- 
nopsis of the families and genera were to be prefixed to it. 
Class Insecta. 
Animals with jointed bodies, breathing through lateral holes or spiracles, PTO 
° n 
Order Lepidoptera. 
The young, called larve or caterpillars, are provided with jaws, and from ten 1 
sixteen legs. They feed principally upon vegetable substances. The pup® eer 
no food, are incapable of moving about, are apparently without legs, these parts 
with their other members being folded up and firmly soldered to the body. 
Section I.—Papiliones. 
Antenne threadlike and knobbed or thickened at the end. Wings not confined 
by @ bristle and hook; all of them, or the first pair at least, elevated perpe 
