SPHINGIDES. 367 



all the stages, Chapman suggests the following more detailed subdivision : 



I. IMAGO with poorly developed proboscis ; resting with 



spread wings, so as not only to require no frenulum, but 



to have lost the " holding area." Pupa of ordinary 



Citheroniid or Lachneid type, i.e., unspecialised. — 



Larva with secondary bifid hairs in earliest stage. Amorphid^e. 



i. Imago : Proboscis nearly obsolete. Pupa : 



Without any special tubercles . . . . . . Amorphic:. 



2. Imago : Proboscis functional. Pupa : Often 



with facial spines ; callosity on metathorax . . Ambulicin"^. 



II. Imago with developed proboscis, resting attitude 

 suggests that there ought to be a "holding area/' but it 

 continues wanting {ergo, derivation from a form that 

 has lost "holding area"). Pupa specialised by 

 thrusting back of head, apparently from immense 

 development of maxilla cases (haustellum). Larva 

 indicates in various ways that secondary bifid hairs are 



lost [e.g., in Sphinx exist on horn, but not elsewhere) Sphingid^. 

 t. Imago : Long proboscis. Larva : Small head, 



retractile front segments. Pupa: Maxilla-case 



more or less prominent and keeled, rarely horned. 



a. Abdomen tufted . . .. .. .. .. Sesiin^b. 



b. Abdomen hardly tufted . . . . . . EumorphinyE. 



2. Imago : Proboscis still stronger, but become 

 rather short. Pupa : Maxilla-cases Eumorphine, 

 much longer than imaginal proboscis. Larva : 

 Thoracic segments well differentiated, but hardly 



retractile ; horn distinctive, head large . . . . Manducin^. 



3. Imago : Proboscis extremely long, abdomen 

 pointed. Pupa : Maxilla-cases usually produced 

 into a horn or trunk, by folding of maxilla at base. 

 Larva : Head large, thoracic segments usually 

 differentiated but not retractile . . . . . . SPHlNGiNiE. 



These schemes may be considered as merely tentative, but at 

 any rate they bring into line the more marked structural characters 

 that have been studied from a phylogenetic standpoint. 



The Sphingid ovum is very characteristic, green in colour 

 (usually laid on leaves or fresh stems), shell transparent, very smooth, 

 and with the micropylar area difficult to detect. The eggs of some 

 species of Sphingids are terribly parasitised, e.g., Dimmock notes 

 {Psyche, 1885, p. 282) that more than 30 minute hymenopterous 

 parasites have been bred from a single egg of Smerinthus ex- 

 caecatus. 



The Sphingid larva is highly specialised, but rather to its mode 

 of life than structurally. One feels pretty certain that its tubercular 

 arrangement is simpler than that of the Attacids, and that its caudal 

 horn, a specialised projection bearing tubercles i on the 8th abdominal 

 segment is really, within the superfamily itself, a generalised structure, 

 its absence here denoting specialisation. The tubercles i, ii, iii and 

 iv are, on the abdominal segments, simple, generalised and single- 

 haired in the 1st skin, save for the fact that the hairs are frequently 

 either bifid (Sesiids) or chalice-like (Amorphids), whilst the 

 so-called v, which is prespiracular, we consider to be homologous 

 with the prespiracular wart of the Lachneids, v of the Lachneids being 

 obsolete. These tubercles may be retained after the 1st moult (and 

 sometimes the subsequent ones;, but they dwindle, and the secondary 

 shagreen hairs obscure them so that they cannot be at all readily 

 detected. On the mesothorax and metathorax in stage 1, i and ii 

 form two separate setae on either side of median line in the Eumorphids 



