Saturniidse 



dark of which I have been speaking. Some of the pleasantest 

 excursions afield which can be made are those which the 

 naturalist takes, when he has only moonlight or starlight to 

 guide his steps. Always take a dark lantern with you. Without 

 it you cannot see, and even with it you will not see much which 

 it might be delightful to behold. But without a lantern you will 

 not see a great deal, and you may in the thick wood get deeply 

 mired in a boggy hole, or even break a limb. Your eyes are not 

 made like those of the owl and the cat. Do not be afraid of the 

 "night air." The air of the night has the same chemical com- 

 position as the air of the day. It is cooler, of course, and some- 

 times it has fog in it, but cool and even foggy air is not un- 

 healthful. Scotchmen live half their lives in fog, but are healthy. 

 The only things to be dreaded are the mosquitoes, carrying with 

 them the germs of malaria, as we call it. These may be kept 

 off if you only know how to anoint yourself with a properly 

 prepared lotion. 



FAMILY SATURNIIDSE 



" When , hypocritically clad in dressing-gown and slippers, I stopped 

 at my guest's inner door and Fontenette opened it just enough to let me 

 in, I saw, indeed, a wonderful sight. The entomologist had lighted up the 

 room, and it was filled, filled ! with gorgeous moths as large as my hand 

 and all of a kind, dancing across one another's airy paths in a bewildering 

 maze, or alighting and quivering on this thing and that. The mosquito- 

 net, draping almost from ceiling to floor, was beflowered with them, 

 majestically displaying in splendid alternation their upper and under 

 colors, or, with wings lifted and vibrant, tipping to one side and another 

 as they crept up the white mesh, like painted and gilded sails in a fairies' 

 regatta." G. W. Cable. 



This family is composed of moths, which are for the most 

 part medium-sized or large. The larvae are cocoon-makers. The 

 perfect insects have vein 8 of the hind wings diverging from the 

 cell from the base of the wings. The frenulum is wanting. The 

 tongue is aborted, being at most extremely rudimentary. There 

 are no tibial spurs on the legs. The antennae are either singly or 

 doubly bipectinated to the tips in the case of the males, and 

 often in the case of the females. Bipectination of the antennae 

 occurs also in the family Geratocampidce, but in the latter family 

 it never extends to the tip of the organ. The family falls into 

 three subfamilies: the Attacince; the Satumiince; and the Hemi- 



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