32 



BRITISH MOTHS 



FAMILY IV. 

 TROCHILIIDtE, Westwood. 



{yEfferiUIa, Stephens, Newmiin, Westwooil, olini.) 



This family consists of a number of very interesting insects, remarkable for their great resemblance to various 

 Hvmenoptera and Dijitera, owing to the elongate form of the body and the nakedness of the wings, which are more 

 or less transparent in most of the species. The antennae are simple, fusiform or thickened towards the tips, and 

 generally terminated by a small pencil of hairs. The ocelli are distinct, and the labial palpi have the second 

 joint long and slender, and the last distinct and pointed at the tip. The spiral tongue varies in length, being 

 not longer than the palpi in Sphecia. The legs are long, and the posterior are furnished with very long spurs. 

 The abdomen generally terminates in a brush, capable of opening and closing at will ; the veins of the wings 

 are comjiaratively few in number. 



The larvre of these moths are fleshy grubs of a cylindrical form, with naked bodies, destitute of a caudal 

 horn. They have six pectoral, eight ventral, and two anal feet. They live in the interior of the branches or 

 roots of trees, of the debris of which they construct a cocoon, or at least a partial one. The chrysalis has the 

 ventral segments armed with transverse rows of recurved points, whereby it is enabled to push itself through the 

 cocoon, and half out of the hole in the stem which the larva had previously made, having had the instinct to turn 

 in its burrow, so that the head of the pupa may be towards the orifice. The perfect insects differ iu their habits, 

 some being exceedingly active, flying about iu the hottest sunshine or basking on the leaves, alternately expand- 

 ing and shutting their fan-tails ; others, on the other hand (Sphecia), are extremely sluggish iu the perfect 

 state, resting on the trunks or leaves of the trees in which they have undergone their transformations, and flying 

 heavily, a peculiarity analogous to that observed in the Smerintlii ; in which, as in the genus in question, the 

 toHSue is almost rudimental. 



These insects are especially worthy of remark, from the difficulties connected with their natural situation 

 amongst the Lepidopterous tribes. The ordinary location assigned to them, with the other species of LinnEean 

 Sphinges, solely as it should seem from the structure of their antenna;, and the analogical relations existing between 

 them and the clear winged Sesife, is disproved by their habits and transformations ; in which latter respect they 

 closely approach Cossus, among the Hepialidre. Mr. Newman, indeed, on this account, introduced them into his 

 " n.atural order Cossi," (including Hepialus, &c.) ; but there are so many characters in the imago state, in which 

 these insects <lifter from all the rest of his Cossi, (amongst which the veining of the wings may especially be 

 mentioned), that I consider such a step to be an unnatural attempt to bind nature to a preconceived numerical 

 system. Indeed, if these moths are forced amongst the Cossi, it would be equally natural to introduce the New 

 Holland Cryptophasia;, the internal feeding Noctuidas, or even many of the Tineida?. Mr. Newman himself, in 

 fact, admits, that " after all, so weak arc the bonds of alliance, so far removed the only supposable approaches, 

 that the family must be considered the most isolated that natural history affords ;" and wo consequently find in 

 his ' Grammar,' that he has (without comment) separated them from the Cossi, into a distinct natural order. 



