LEPIDOPTEEA INDICA. 



The insects comprised in this Order are divided into two groups or sub-orders; 

 namely : — Rhopaloceea or Butterflies, and Hetekoceea or Motlis ; the distinction 

 between the two sub-orders being primarily based on the structure of the autennge, 

 which in Butterflies are more or less uniform in structure and clubbed at the tip, 

 while those of the Moths exhibit great variations in structure and even in those of 

 the sexes of the same species ; the Butterflies form the highest members of the 

 Order. 



Sub-order EHOPALOCERA. 



Butterflies are diurnal in their habits, with few exceptions, flying only in the 

 daytime, and as a rule are active on the wing only during sunshine. They have 

 sexually uniform antennae, terminating in a more or less distinct club, with scarcely 

 an exception have no ocelli, nor the curved bristle (or frenulum) serving in moths to 

 connect the front and hindwings near the base, and usually undergo their trans- 

 formations in the open air without spinning any encircling cocoon. They are divisible 

 into five famihes, namely : — I. KriXPHALiDj: ; II. Lemoxild^ ; III. Lxcj:xiDJi ; IV. 

 PAPiLio>'iri ; V. Hespeeiid^, of which the following are their general structural 

 characters, extracted mostly from Mr. Scudder's " Butt, of the E. United States," 

 pp. 105-8. 



Family I.— XTMPHALID^. 



Imago. — The front jjair of legs atrophied, and unfitted for walking. Antennae 

 with a straight or drooping club. Wings with the outer margins usually crenulate, 

 dentate, sinuate, or angulate ; frontwings with the subcostal vein five-branched ; 

 hindwings with three median branches, inner margin always embracing the abdomen. 



Egg. — Either reticulate and then subglobular, or else vertically ribbed and 

 generally trellised over at least the upper half, and then never more than one-half 

 as high again as broad. 



Cateepillae at Birth. — Head generally larger, never smaller, than the thoracic 

 segments, and generally scabrous ; when of the same size, the corneous crown of 

 the head is never encroached upon by the integument of the first thoracic segment, 

 and the body is covered either with series of very long hairs (in which case most of 

 them are acicular and not clubbed at the tip) or with extremely short and distant 

 acicular hairs. 



VOL. I. B 



