351- ARTICULATA. IINSECTA. 



marked affinity with the true Papiliones with which 

 we began.* 



FAM. II. CREPUSCULARIA,f HAWK-MOTHS. 



The Insects of this division, very few of which 

 are ever seen abroad daring daylight, never erect 

 their wings. The upper pair are linked to the 

 lower by a curious curved spine, which, proceeding 

 from the base of the latter, passes through a sort 

 of loop on the under side of the former, and thus 

 retains them in their place. The antennas gradually 



* We wonder that no one has tried to naturalize some of those 

 splendid foreign Butterflies which inhabit climates similar to our own, 

 and whose caterpillars feed on plants which grow naturally in both lo- 

 calities ; and there are many such, especially in North America, such as 

 the beautiful P. Turnus and Asterius, the former of which feeds in the 

 larva state on the willow and ash, and the latter on the parsnip and other 

 umbelliferce. Both of these are common even so far north as Newfound- 

 land. It might doubtless be easily effected by collecting the caterpillars 

 in their own country, and allowing them to go into chrysalis, in whiclfc 

 state they might be transported during the winter, and be evolved here 

 in spring. We have had a specimen of P. Asterius produced here from 

 a chrysalis which we had brought from North America ; and we have 



seen in the collection of Mr. Loddiges, a specimen of Coronis ?, a 



noble Brazilian species, which that gentleman informed us had been pro- 

 duced in his conservatory at Hackney, having been probably introduced 

 in the earth of some imported plant. We see no reason indeed why the 

 magnificent Lepidoptera even of the tropics might not be reared in our 

 conservatories and stove-houses, as readily as the Palms and Orchideae 

 of the same regions. Whatever plant might be the food of the larva, 

 provided it were known, might surely be obtained in England in the 

 present state of botanical science. 



t Crepusculum, the twilight. 



