ORDER LEPIDOPTERA 



SUBORDER HETEROCERA (MOTHS) 



FAMILY I. 

 THE SPHINGID/E (HAWKMOTHS) 



"The Sphinx is drowsy, 

 Her wings are furled." EMERSON. 



THE moths composing this family vary greatly in size. Some 

 African species are very little more than an inch in expanse of 

 wings. Those which occur in North America are medium-sized 

 or large. 



The body is relatively very stout, the abdomen conic, cylin- 

 dric, or flattened on the ventral surface, always protruding far 

 beyond the hind margin of the secondaries, sometimes adorned 

 with lateral or terminal tufts capable of expansion. The thorax 

 is stout and often advanced beyond the insertion of the wings. 

 The head is large and generally prominent. The eyes are often 

 large, prominent, and generally naked, never hairy. The palpi 

 are well, but never excessively, developed. 

 The proboscis is generally long, some- 

 times much longer than the body, but in a 

 few genera among the Ambulicince greatly 

 reduced and even obsolete. The antennae 



are well developed, stouter in the male 



FIG. 20. Greatly 



than in the female sex, thickening from the magnified view of 

 base to the middle, or in some genera to ^ e under side of 



three joints of the 



nearly the end, usually hooked at the ex- antenna of P. guin- 

 tremity, sometimes merely curved. The quemaculatus. 

 joints of the antennae in the case of the males 

 of some of the subfamilies are equipped at either end with pecul- 

 iarly arranged fascicles of projecting hairs, or cilia, the arrangement 



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