188 MAINE STATE COLLEGE 



Habits. 



The eggs are laid singly on the food plant, hatch in one or two 

 weeks ; the young larvae are usually pale green or yellowish green 

 and clothed with short, erect hairs. They molt or shed the skin 

 about four times before they are fully grown. Thay have on the 

 twelfth segment a spine that curves backward and is called the 

 caudal horn. (This horn disappears after the first molt in a 

 few species.) The mature larva is cylindrical and smooth or 

 granulate. When done feeding they descend and usually enter 

 the ground to transform, though a few make imperfect cocoons on 

 the surface made of leaves drawn together with silk. 



The moths are medium sized to large, the bodies short, fore 

 wings comparatively long and narrow, hind wings much smaller, 

 head large, clothed with hair-like scales, either tufted or appressed ; 

 eyes, large, hemispherical, naked. The proboscis usually long 

 and slender and when not in use, coiled like a watch spring 

 between the palpi. The wings usually move rapidly in flight. 

 They are sometimes taken for humming birds. This is quite a 

 large family, there being, according to Prof. J.'B. Smith, over 

 eighty species in temperate North America. According to 

 Prof. Fernald there are nearly fifty species in New England, 

 the most of which occur in Maine. Quite a number of the 

 species feed upon the foliage of fruit trees, forest trees and 

 shrubbery of economic importance. Of those mentioned above, 

 Smerintlms geminatus, Say., is a general feeder and has been 

 found upon the apple, plum, elm, ash and willow. 



Triptogon modesta, Harris, feeds upon the poplar and cotton 

 wood. 



Sphinx gordius, Cramer, (Fernald Sphinges of New England, 

 p. 44, Fig. 1, PI. 1), has been called the Apple Sphinx on account 

 of its common occurrence in orchards, but it feeds upon the ash, 

 also upon the Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale, L. and the Wax Myrtle, 

 Myrica Cerifera, L.) Those who are interested in the above 

 species, or in the Sphinges generally will find the Sphinges of New 

 England considered in detail in Fernald's Sphingiclae of New 

 England, published in the Agr'l Rep't of Maine, 1886, or the 

 Sphinges of America, north of Mexico, in Prof. J. B. Smith's 

 Monograph, published by the American Entomological Society of 

 Philadelphia, Pa. 



