Xl LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



parts, the coxae ; the trochanters ; the femora, or thighs ; the 

 tibiae, or shanks ; and the tarsi, or feet. The last three are the 

 most important to notice in Lepidoptera. The tarsi are normally 

 five-jointed, but in many Nymphalidce, &c., the front-legs are 

 rudimentary in one, or both, sexes, but especially in the 

 males, and in such cases the tarsi may be reduced to a 

 single joint, or are occasionally even absent. The tibiae 

 are generally provided with a pair of spines at the ex- 

 tremity, and frequently in the middle also. The tarsi, when 

 fully developed, terminate in a pair of claws, which are bifid 

 (Plate I., fig. 13) in many Butterflies, as, for instance, in the 

 Pieridcz. In the groups which have the front legs more or less 

 aborted in one or both sexes, the first stage is the disappearance 

 of one or both of the tarsal claws. In some Moths (Hepialidce, 

 &c.), the hind pair of legs are imperfectly developed in the 

 males. 



The legs are sometimes naked, and sometimes covered 

 with short or long hairs, occasionally almost spinose. 

 In some Moths there is a large fan-like tuft of hair on the 

 legs of the males. 



The legs are usually concolorous with the body, whether 

 hairy or not. Sometimes they are of a different colour ; in Lar- 

 inopoda, a white African genus of Lycccnidce^ the legs are always 

 reddish or tawny. When the antennae are ringed with black 

 and white, the legs are generally ringed or spotted with white 

 too, especially at the knees and at the joints of the tarsi. The 

 legs in Butterflies are weak, and are generally only used to step 

 circumspectly over a flower, though some Moths will shuffle 

 along a plane surface in a manner that has gained for one of 

 them the soubriquet of "The Mouse." 



The substance of the wings consists of a double membrane, 

 permeated by branching air-tubes, generally called nervures. 

 Their arrangement is so important for classification that it will 



