AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS. S5 



PYRALIDiE, Leach. CRAMBITES, Latreille. 



The species of this family are of comparatively small or moderate size, having the body slender and 

 elongated ; the antennee simple, or but slightly ciliated in the males ; the labial palpi often very much 

 elongated and porrected, but sometimes recurved, and those of the maxillae occasionally developed ; the 

 maxiUse, or spiral tongue, generally of moderate length, although in Hydrocampa very small, and in Aglossa 

 nearly obsolete ; the head sometimes furnished vrith a pair of ocelli ; the thorax of moderate size, not crested ; 

 the wings also of moderate size, and generally placed in a triangle during repose ; the fore veings often angulated 

 at the tip ; the legs ordinarily very long, especially the fore pair ; with the coxse nearly as long as the 

 femora, thus indicating the great activity of movement which these insects so frequently exhibit. The males of 

 some species have the fore legs singularly ornamented with brushes of hairs, capable of expansion, whence the 

 species have received the name oi fan-footed moths; and the anterior tarsi of the males of some species of 

 Pyralis are obsolete. There is considerable diversity in the preparatory stages of these insects : in general, the 

 caterpillars are long and slightly hairy, having generally only three, but sometimes four, pairs of ventral feet. 

 They are never geometrical in their movements, nor radicivorous in their habits, nor are they densely clothed 

 with hairs. Some of the genera, as Nola, Simaethis, &c., are anomalous. The family, as restricted in the 

 following pages, corresponds with Linnaeus's twelve or fourteen last species of the genus Geometra, and with the 

 whole of his Pyralides, which he characterises " alls conniventibus in figuram deltoideam forcipatam." (Syst. 

 Nat., vol. ii., p. 809.) 



The species of Hypena and its allies are the largest in the family, and frequent hedges and low herbage ; 

 they are of dull colours, and the larvae are well distinguished by having only three pairs of ventral feet, and the 

 chrysalis inclosed in a slight cocoon, in a leaf rolled up by the larvse.* The species of Aglossa, on the other 

 hand, are domestic insects, their larvEe feeding upon butter, grease, and other similar substances ; whilst 

 Pyralis farinalis, Lin., feeds on flour, meal, &c. The species of Pyrausta are gaily-coloured insects, which 

 revel in the sunshine, hovering over grassy spots, but immediately settling as soon as the sun' is overcast ; 

 whilst those of Hydrocampa and its allies, distinguished by their prettily-marked wings, (whence they have 

 derived the name of China-marks,) frequent aquatic plants, upon which the larvae feed, inhabiting moveable 

 cases, formed of portions of the plants ; the sides of the body of the larvae in some species which reside beneath 

 the surface of the water being furnished with elongated filaments (as in some of the Phryganeidae), employed 

 in extracting the oxygen from the water. 



HYPENA, SCHRANK. 



The insects of this genus are at once distinguished by their greatly elongated and squamose palpi ; the short 

 terminal joint of which is generally bent upwards ; the antennas are slender and setaceous ; the spiral tongue as 

 loner as the antennse ; the wings are of large size and trigonate, with the tips acute and generally rather falcate ; 

 the posterior tibiae are furnished with two pairs of spurs ; and the fore wings in some species are furnished 

 in the middle with small elevated tufts of scales. 



Species 1. — Hypena proboscidalis i — (Plate LXXIV., Figs. 9, 10) — Measures from If to 2 inches in 

 expanse ; fore wings gray-brown, with an incurved dark striga near the base, and a central, nearly straight but 



* See Ljonnet Posih. Research., pi. 33, in which the traDsformationB of several species are figured. 



