276 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



front of this rather broadly paler. The hind-wings are yellowish- 

 white. There is a white anal tuft. The female is usually smaller 

 and paler yellow than the male, with snow-white hind-wings. 



The moth appears at the end of May, and in June. The 

 larva lives in reeds. 



FAMILY PTEROPHORID^E. 



This Family was formerly placed at the end of the 

 Lepidoptera, between the Tinea and the Orneodida ; but the 

 moths are now considered to be nearly allied to the Pyralidcz, 

 on account of their long, slender, body, antennae, and legs, 

 with strong spurs, and the long and rather narrow wings, which 

 are held extended like those of a Crane-Fly, or Daddy Long- 

 legs, which the moths greatly resemble when at rest. But the 

 chief character which distinguishes these moths from nearly 

 all other insects, is that, in most of the species, the fore-wings 

 are more or less deeply cleft in two, and the hind-wings are 

 divided, almost to the base, into three distinct feathers. 



The larvae have sixteen legs, and are hairy, as are also some 



of their pupae. 



GENUS ALUCITA. 



Alucita, Linnaeus, Syst.Nat. (ed. x.), i. p. 542 (1758) ; Poda, Mus 

 Graec, p. 94 (1761); Treitschke, Schmett. Eur. ix. (2), 

 p. 225 (1833), nee Fabricius\ nee Stephens. 



Pterophorus, pt. Geoffroy, Ins. Paris, ii. p. 90, (1762). 



The type of this genus is the following : 



THE WHITE-PLUME MOTH. ALUCITA PENTADACTYLA. 



(Plate CLVIIL, Fig. 9.) 



Alucita pentadactyla^ Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. (ed. x.), i. p. 542, 

 no. 304 (1758) ; id. Faun. Suec. p. 371, no. 1457 (1761) , 

 Hiibner, Eur. Schmett. ix. fig. i (1800); Treitschke, 

 Schmett. Eur. ix. (2), p. 249 ("1833). 



