410 The Moths and Butterflies 



is the pale footman, Crambidia pallida, expanding nearly i inch and 

 drab all over; C. cephalica, found in Colorado and Arizona, expanding 

 not quite an inch, has both wings and the whole body of a delicate shining 

 silvery white. The banded footman, Cisthent (Ozonadia) unijascia, found 

 all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, expands f inch and has the fore 

 wings dark with a narrow curving yellow band and the hind wings with 

 the base and disk pink or yellowish, the apex being dark. Lithosia (Lexis) 

 bicolor, found in the northern states and Canada, expands nearly i inches 

 and is slate-colored, with yellow on the front margin of the fore wings, the 

 tip of the abdomen, the prothorax, and the palpi. The several Rocky 

 Mountain and desert species mostly have brick-red or drab or slaty ground 

 color, some unmarked and some with dark border on the hind wings if 

 red is the ground color, and smoky-whitish hind wings if body and fore 

 wings are drab or slaty. 



Another family of moths expanding about an inch, and with a charac- 

 teristic habitus due to the long narrow fore wings, the small size of the 

 hind wings, and the contrasting colors of the wing-pattern, are the Zygaenidae, 

 or Syntomidae, as the newer nomenclature names them. In the hind wing, 

 veins subcosta and radius are fused, usually for the whole length. About 

 twenty species of the family are found in this country, and because, as 

 with the Lithosiidae, the larvae are not of much economic importance the 

 life-history of but few of the species is known. The majority of the species, 

 besides, live in the western and southwestern states, and like other 

 mountain, plain, and desert insects are hardly known except in their flying 

 stage. The larvae of some species feed on grasses, of others on lichens. 



One of the most striking species is Cosmosoma auge, found in the 

 extreme south, which has both fore and hind wings clear of scales over 

 the base and disk only, a border all around the veins, and a small black 

 patch at the tip of the discal cell of the fore wing covered with black scales. 

 The plump body is scarlet, with the end of the abdomen and a dorsal 

 longitudinal band on it metallic blue-black. The w'ngs expand i inch. 

 Lycomorpha is a genus of small Zygaenids characterized by having the 

 wings colored in two strongly contrasting shades, black and brick-red or 

 black and reddish yellow. In L. pholus the basal two-fifths of each 

 wing is yellow and all the rest black; in L. miniata the basal two- 

 thirds is red, the rest black; in L. grotei all of the fore wing is red 

 except a narrow black border on the outer margin, while the anterior 

 half of the hind wings is red, the posterior half black. Ctenucha is a 

 genus of larger species which have smoky-brown wings unmarked, as 

 in C. virginica, a northeastern species, which has a yellow head 

 and metallic bluish-black body, C. multifaria and C. ruberoscapus, 

 Pacific coast species which have a coral-red head and shoulder-lappets 



