﻿178 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



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LFig. 55.] ^ ened at tip, are generally long and more or less supple, and there 



are two distinct ocelli between the eyes, behind the antenna3. The 

 Castnians vary much in general appearance, but whether we 

 deal with the Brazilian Castnia Linus (Cram.) with its narrow, 

 elongate, rounded, clear-spotted wings, and its remarkably elon- 

 gate and swollen basal joint of the middle tarsi ; or with C. Licus 

 (Cram.) which has broad, angular wings; or with the genera 

 Ceretes, Orthia, Gazera, and Synemon — we find the characters 

 above mentioned constant: they are typical of the Family and 

 are Heterocerous characters. Yuccce^ on the contrary, has none 

 of these characters, but in the smaller wings, in their venation, in 

 enation ot^cas Ilia la-^^^ closeness of the small and narrow scales and hairiness: at base, 

 in having no ocelli, and in the unarmed secondaries, entirely agrees with the Hesperi- 

 ans. I attach much less importance to the antennje, size of head and body or even the 

 spurs of tibire ; because they are all more variable. Thus, while most of the Castnians 

 have the antennal club tipped with a spine or a bunch of bristles, others (e, g. Castnia 

 Orestes, Walker, from Surinam,) have it of the same shape as in Vucece, and unarmed 

 or even more short and blunt (5^?/nemo?i 7%eresa, Doubl.) Again, in most Hesperians 

 the club tapers, or is curved at tip ; but there are all degrees of variation, from the ex- 

 tremely curved club of Epargy7-eus Tityrus (Fabr.) to the straight and blunt club of 

 Oarisina Poweshiek (Parker). The small head and subobsolete spurs in Yuccce are abnor- 

 mal compared with either family ; for most of the Castnians have the spurs much as in 

 Hesperia, and the head almost as broad as the thorax. In the stiflEer, relatively shorter 

 antennas, with large club ; in the spines which stud the tibiae,* as well as in the stout- 

 ness of the thorax and abdomen. Yucca; is again Hesperian rather than Castnian. The 

 Castnians, like the Uranians, and many other exceptional moths, resemble the butter- 

 flies in being day-flyers ; but the position of the wings in repose, which is a more im- 

 portant character, is said by all observers to be similar to that of Catocala, Drasteria, 

 and other Heterocera, viz. : deflexed or incumbent. Yuccce, both in manner of repose, 

 in color, and in pattern, is a staunch Hesperian. 



In short, a careful consideration of the characters of our Yucca Borer shows that 

 in all the more important characters it is essentially Hesperian; and that in most of 

 those characters by which it differs from the more typical species of that family — as in 

 the small spurs, in having only the apical ones on the hind tibiae, in the tibial spines, 

 and diflerence in size of legs — it is more Khopalocerous than Heterocerous. The same 

 holds true when we consider the adolescent states. In the small head of both larva 

 and imago, and in the very large abdomen, it is abnormal ; but these characters are 

 traceable to the abnormal larval habit, and are very unimportant compared to the pter- 

 ogostic and other characters cited. I have long since concluded that general larval 

 form and appearance is so dependent on habit and so variable according to habit, that 

 it is Je.ss valuable than more minute structural characters, and that for purposes of 

 classification it has even less value than egg structure, and infinitely less than imaginal 

 characters. All endophytous Lepidopterous larvie, of whatever family, have certain 

 general resemblances that are a consequence of similarity of habit ; and I give it as my 

 emphatic opinion that Yuccce is a large bodied Hesperian, which, though approaching the 



*In the Castnians tliat I have been able to exarniue none of the tibiie have spines, while those on 

 the tarsi are very minute; the middle tibia; have a pair of unequal, prominent sub-apical spurs, and the 

 hind tibiie have two similarly iincfiual pairs, the anterior pair from about the terniiiuil lifth. 



