54 NATURAL HISTORY. 



United States and Mexico, where its caterpillar lives in the stems of the American aloe. Another 

 species (Eusc/temon rafflesice) is an Australian insect of nearly equal size. It is of a rich velvety black, 

 with bright yellow markings on the hind wings, and is remarkable for having the fore and hind wings 

 connected by a bristle at the base, an arrangement frequently met with in Moths, but not occurring 

 in any other known Butterfly. 



CHAPTER XL 



MOTHS. 



The Pages The Castniidce Moths with Clubbed Antennae Humming Bird Hawk Moth Bee Clear-wings Lovers of the 

 Vine Eyed Hawk Moth Death's Head Hawk Moth Scented Hawk Moths Hornet Clear-wing Currant Clear- 

 wing The Green Foresters The Burnets Day-flying Moths of the East Indies The Footmen The Tigers The 

 Gold-tail Moth The Gipsy Moth Case-bearing Moths The Puss Moth The Prominents The Lobster Moth The 

 Processionary Caterpillars The Silkworm The Atlas Moth The Ailanthus Silkworm The Tusseh Silkworm Long- 

 tailed Moths The Emperor Moth The Lappet Moth The Oak Eggar The Lackey Moth The Wood Leopard Moth 

 The Goat Moth The Swifts The Night Moths The Wainscots The Dark Arches -The Cabbage Moth The Cut- 

 worms The Yellow Underwings The Chestnuts The Angle Shades- -The Sharks Beautiful Yellow Under wing 

 The Gamma Moth, or Silver Y The Burnished Brass Moth The Old Lady The Red Underwings The Orange 

 Moths of Australia The Great Owl Moth The Snout The Loopers The Swallow-tail Moth The Brimstone Moth 

 The Thorns The Emeralds The Waves Heath Moths The Soldier Moths The Magpie Moth Winter Moths 

 The Pugs The Carpets -Erateina The Pearls The Meal Moth The Crimson and Gold The China Marks The 

 Small Magpie The Knot-horns Their Webs The Grass Moths The Bell Moths The Green Oak Moth Pests of 

 the Orchard Jumping Seeds Clothes' Moths Long- horns The Smallest Moth known The Plume Moths The 

 Twenty-plume Moth Fossil Butterflies and Moths. 



MOTHS are many times more numerous than Butterflies. In Britain we have about thirty Moths to 

 every Butterfly ; and although the same proportion does not hold good elsewhere (for there are only 

 seventeen Moths to one Butterfly on the Continent), yet, taking the whole world, we are at present 

 acquainted with about 40,000 or 50,000 Moths, and only 10,000 or 12,000 Butterflies, although com- 

 paratively little attention has yet been bestowed on Moths either by collectors or entomologists. 

 In discussing the Moths, therefore, we must here content ourselves with briefly noticing the principal 

 families, and a few of the more interesting species. But the classification of Moths is at present much 

 less satisfactory than that of Butterflies, and it is not pretended that the families of Moths about to 

 be enumerated follow in natural order. But we find throughout nature that many groups of animals 

 and plants combine the characters of others in varying proportions, and that it is frequently impossible 

 to arrange either families, genera, or species in a linear series which is also natural, even in the case 

 of groups which are much better understood than the Moths. The old groups, Sphinges and Bom- 

 byces, the first of which included the families up to the Zygcenidce inclusive, and the latter the 

 remaining families to the ffepialidce inclusive, are now abandoned by most entomologists as 

 scientifically accurate terms, though still frequently used for convenience in a general manner. 



The Uramidae, or Pages, include a small number of very beautiful Moths, formerly regarded 

 as Butterflies, and still of doubtful position. The typical genus Urania is South American. The 

 species are all transversely banded with black and green, and there is a long tail, sometimes edged 

 with white, on the hind wings. They measure about three inches across the wings, and but for the 

 long and slender antennae might well pass for true Papilios. They fly by day, and one species 

 (Urania fulgens) migrates in large flocks at certain seasons across the Isthmus of Panama. Several 

 genera allied to this, but of duller colours, are found in the East Indies, but one of the most beautiful 

 insects known is the splendid Chrysiridia madagascariensis, which is banded with black and green. 

 The hind wings are three-tailed, and a great part of their surface is of a flame-coloured red, shading 

 into orange on the under surface, and with black markings. This insect, which measures four inches 

 across the wings, is common in Madagascar and at Zanzibar ; and it is stated that if the Moth emerges 

 from the chrysalis in the shade the wings take much longer to develop, and are much less brilliant 

 than when it emerges in the sunshine. These Moths are referred by some writers to the 

 Geometridce. 



The Castniidce are another group of day-flying Moths, common in the East Indies and America, 

 which used to be regarded as Butterflies by early writers on entomology. They have robust bodies, 



