AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS. g- 



spots emitting hairs. It feeds on willow, ash, nettle, &c., anil the moth appears in June ; but is by no 



means common, although widely dispersed, having been found in Kent, Surrey, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, 

 Hampshire, Oxford, Huntingdonshire, Cambridge, Yorkshire, &c. 



FAMILY VIII.— LITHOSIID^, Stephens. 



Tliis family is of small extent, and difficult location, having the body slender, the antenna? generally slender 

 and setaceous in both sexes, but occasionally pectinated or ciliated in the males ; the mouth is much better 

 developed than in many of the preceding moths, the maxilla; being long (with the maxillary palpi exceedingly 

 minute and bi-articulated in Deiopeia inikhclla, according to Savigny) and spiral, and the labial palpi of 

 moderate size, and three-jointed, the third joint being small and, in some cases, apparently soldered with the 

 preceding ; the thorax is not crested ; the wings of comparatively delicate texture, elongated, and when at 

 rest, carried horizontally or convoluted, the inner margin of one of the fore wings lapping over the same 

 margin of the other. The larva; are cylindrical, and often hairy, with six pectoral, eight ventral, and two anal 

 feet ; they arc solitary in their habits, never residing cither in a case or in a general tent-like web. In their 

 habits the perfect insects are weak and inactive ; they fly rarely by day, although the brilliant colours of 

 some few species indicate them to bo day-fliers. Their flight is short and feeble. 



The family is closely related to such of the aberrant Arctiidas as have an elongated spiral tongue, such as 

 Heraclia Dominula : indeed, Latrcille places the Lithosia; in the same group as the Arctia; without any 

 sectional division ; they, however, make a very near approach to the Yponomeutidse, as is evident from such 

 insects as Eulepia cribrum and Yponomeuta Evonymella ; hence in some of the works of Latreille, the Tineites 

 of that author (including Yponomeuta) are placed immediately after the present family and precedin" the 

 Noctuidte. Mr. Stephens considers them to be so closely related to the last-mentioned family, that he unites 

 them together to form his sub-section Nocturna ; but this relation appears to mc to bo too slight to warrant 

 such a step. Many very splendid exotic species appear to constitute a passage between these insects and the 

 aberrant Anthroceridte. 



CALLIMORPHA, Latreille (nec Boisduval). EUCHELIA, (p.) Boisduval. TYRIA, Hub.ner. 



Independently of the peculiarity of colouring of tlie type of this genus, it is distinguished by the breadth 

 of the wings, which form a triangle when closed, the antenna; slender, those of the males emitting two short 

 bristles from each joint ; the palpi have the joints of nearly equal length, but decreasing in thickness ; the 

 spiral tongue is elongated, but not so long as the antennsB ; the thorax is small, and the abdomen elongate, 

 being cylindrical in the male, but shorter and more ovate in the female. The caterpillar is clothed with a few 

 long straggling hairs only ; it is of a pale colour, annulated with black, with sixteen feet ; it changes to an 

 obtuse chrysalis in a slight cocoon under ground. 



As Latreille expressly gives Phalsena Jacobrea as the type of his genus Callimorpha in the Ri'gne Animal, 

 the nomenclature of Mr. Stephens is adopted in preference to that of Boisduval, who makes Dominula the type 

 of Callimorpha, and unites Jacoba;sB and pulchella into a new genus, introducing miniata (rosea) into the genus 

 Lithosia. 



