﻿124 CLEMENS' SYNOPSIS OF 



Edward Norton, of Farmington, Conn., A. J. Packard, of Brunswick, Me., Archibald 

 Hopkins, of Williamstown, Mass., and Robert Kennicott, of West Northfield, 111., for 

 the loan and contribution of specimens of the present family from their collections. 



In conclusion, it is, perhaps, unnecessary to say to the student, that the general 

 conceptions respecting the nature of the various natural groups heretofore treated, 

 have been derived chiefly from the study of Professor Agassiz's philosophical and 

 incomparable essay on Classification, contained in the first volume of his Contributions 

 to the Natural History of the United States. Previously to the appearance of this 

 work, my own studies had been specially directed to this subject, but with scarcely 

 any satisfactory results. It gives me pleasure, therefore, to make here an acknow- 

 ledgment of the essential aid, derived from the teachings of a naturalist so 

 distinguished, whilst, at the same time, I alone am responsible for the errors, which 

 have doubtless resulted from the application of the general principles, so ably and 

 lucidly presented by their author. 



I am indebted for the very full bibliography of species, to Mr. Francis Walker's 

 List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the collection of the British 

 Museum, Part 8, which, however, has been carefully re-examined in so far as the 

 books of reference were to be met with in our libraries. The specific descriptions 

 have been drawn from actual specimens when they could be obtained, and when this 

 has not been posssible, the descriptions of Mr. Walker, sometimes modified from the 

 figures of other authors, have been preferred as more accurate and reliable than any 

 with which I have met. 



In relation to the measurements, of the two giving the breadth of the head, the 

 first gives the transverse diameter across the eyes, and the second that across the 

 front at the base of the antennae. These, when not expressed, must always be 

 understood as lines and parts of lines. 

 Eastern, Penn'a., June, 1859. 



LEP1DOPTERA. 



Family SPHINGID^. 



The perfect insects included in this group, are characterized by the absence of 

 simple eyes on the vertex at the base of the antennae. The head is well developed, 

 and well clothed with hairs, that but rarely show a tendency to become tufted; the 

 antennae are prismatic, and more or less thickened towards the tip, where they are 

 recurved in the form of a hook, and surmounted by a ciliated seta ; they are dqubly 

 ciliated in the males, on the sides of the plates prolonged beneath from the stalk, and 

 nearly simple in the females : in some genera the terminal seta is obsolete, but the 



