IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 61 



species of Herminidce. Grote writes of this sub-class : " This sub- 

 family was formerly regarded as belonging to the PYRALIDJE. lu 

 the vernacular the Deltoides are called " Snout Moths," from their 

 long labial palpi. But Herrich-Schaffer showed that in their essential 

 characters they conform to the Noctuid type, i.e., they are Pyralidi- 

 form-Noctuidci'. The wings are usually pointed at the tips, the 

 colours are grey and dusky, and the usual Noctuid ornamentation is 

 hardly to be discerned. The eyes are naked. They fall into two 

 principal tribes. The character of this sub-family becomes again 

 largely European. As the name " Snout Moths " refers to this sub- 

 family, I have called the PYRALTD^S by the name of ' Sparkler Moths ' " 

 (' Canadian Entomologist,' vol. xxii., p. 146). 



Guenee divides the Deltoides into the three families just men- 

 tioned, viz., the Platydidcc, Hypenidcv and Herminidcv. He, however, 

 maintains their distinction as a family separate from the NOCTILSS and 

 criticises at length Herrich-Schaffer's arrangement. This latter 

 author certainly makes some unaccountable changes, and, although 

 one understands his reasons for removing Herminia and Hypena into 

 the NOOTIUB; the removal of Sehranckia (Tholmiges) turfosalis and 

 Birula sericealis into the Nyctecttdce with Sarrothripa undulanus 

 (revayami), Ualias chlorana and H. prasinana ; and that of Sophronia 

 emortualis into the Leptosidw with Amentia flexttla, Phytometra cenea 

 (viridaria) etc., are quite inexplicable. At the same time, Guenee saw 

 that the group had nothing in common with the true PYRALTDJE, for he 

 wrote : " It is impossible, certainly to leave the species included in 

 the Deltoides with the true PYRALITES, of which the larvae, habits, 

 neuration and other characters are so different ; and, without uniting 

 them altogether with the NOCTILE from which they are isolated by 

 their early stages, by their palpi, by their slender bodies, by their habits 

 etc., one is able to make, like Latreille did, a separate division which will 

 connect the true NOCTU^E with the PYRALES properly so called " 

 (' Histoire naturelle des Lep.,' vol. viii., p. 4). He then adds : 

 " The organs of the perfect insects are much more curious than their 

 early stages. In this respect, this division is perhaps the most in- 

 teresting of the nocturnal Lepidoptera. It is that in which Nature 

 has more frequently broken the general rules which she has laid down 

 and made exceptions, the reason for which almost always escape us, and 

 which on that account, we dogmatically call caprice, accustomed as we 

 are to measure its inexhaustible fecundity from our own standpoint 

 and knowledge, resigning ourselves to admire only, that which we 

 cannot understand. Perhaps if we could see further, these apparent 

 chances would appear to us as full of motive and as necessary as those 

 organs, the ingenious simplicity of which we so much admire " 

 (I.e. p. 5). Guenee then describes the various organs at length. Of 

 the feet he writes : " The feet yield in no way to the antennae for 

 the exceptional appendages which have their origin on the first pair. 

 It frequently happens that the latter is swollen, as we have already 

 noticed in some NocTU.as, into a kind of sheath which contains the joint 

 itself, and further into a brush of silky hairs which the insect expands 

 at will. At other times, instead of a sheath, the leg carries a sort of 

 broad tuft of reclining hairs, whilst lastly, a second tuft is sometimes 

 found at the upper extremity. There are some species in which 



