LEPIDOPTERA, 



267 



this thread so badly that most of them leave it behind them wherever 



they go." 



They are found on many trees, but particularly on the oak, the 



foliage of which they often entirely 

 ^^_^^-=. _ ^. devour. They burrow into the 



ground to change into chrysalides, 

 and undergo all their metamor- 

 phoses in the course of the year. 

 Others do not become perfect in- 

 sects till the autumn, or sometimes 

 not even till the following spring. 

 A few assume the perfect state in 

 winter. There are, indeed, some 

 of these, such as the males of the 

 Hybernias (Figs. 262, 263), which 

 fly about on the foggy evenings of 

 November. The females of this 

 genus have either no wings at all, 



or else only rudimentary ones. Two species, the Hybernia defoltaria, 



or Winter Moth (Figs. 263, 264), and the Chimatobia brumata (Figs. 



265, 266), abundant in England, are very common near Paris. 



M. Maurice Girard says, in his work on the metamorphoses of 



Fig. 262.— Hybernia leucophearia, male. 



Fig. 263. — Winter Moth (^Hybernia 

 defoliaria), male. 



Fig, 264. — Winter Moth [Hybernia 

 defoliaria), female. 



insects, that the females of these moths can easily be found at the 

 beginning of November, in a very strange place, namely, on the gas 

 I lamps of the public promenades ; for instance, along the roads in the 

 Bois de Boulogne. No doubt they had climbed up to this height, 

 ilattracted by the light, or perhaps had been carried thither by the 

 |males, which fly, having wings. 



In February and March appear other analogous species. " We 

 may find/' says M. Maurice Girard, "near Paris, in the meadows 

 which surround the confluence of the Seine and the Mame, at the 



