BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



Superfamily IX : SPHINGIDES (concluded). 

 Family : Sphingids. 

 Subfam. : Sesiin^e. 



This subfamily has already been dealt with somewhat at 

 length in our consideration of the Sphingids (anted, vol. iii). It has 

 also been characterised (loc. cit., pp. 366 — 367) and compared 

 somewhat in detail (loc. cit., pp. 503 et seq.) with the Hemarids, a 

 subfamily closely united by lepidopterists to the Sesiids, and it 

 must be confessed that there is considerable resemblance between 

 the two groups in all their stages except the pupal. The Sesiid 

 egg is small, laid upon the foodplant, and possibly specialised to 

 resemble the buds amongst which it is often placed. The larva is very 

 typically Sphingid, with well-developed caudal horn, a small head, and 

 only very slightly retractile thorax; in its first stadium it has tubercles 

 i, ii, iii, iv generalised in position, that which is usually considered v 

 being, as in other Sphingids, distinctly prespiracular, a feature apparently 

 fairly characteristic* of the superfamily; each of these tubercles 

 bears a single bifid hair ; on the meso- and metathorax, however, 

 i and ii are placed on a common base ; in the later stadia, there is a 

 growth of secondary bifid hairs. In these respects, Hemarid and 

 Sesiid larvae show striking resemblances. The pupae, however, are 

 characteristically different, and ally the species closely with the 

 Eumorphids. Chapman, who has examined the pupa of Sesia 

 stellatarum, and seen those of some half-dozen other Sesiid species 

 that agree with it in general characters, says : " It is not easy to 

 say wherein the Sesiid pupa differs from that of the Eumorphid 

 section, in which the pupae have the labrum dorsal and the front 

 of the pupa occupied by a deep maxillary keel, whilst one is 

 inclined to place the pupa of Nephele with the Sesiids rather than with 

 the Eumorphids. The chief difference is that the Sesiid pupa is 

 usually very markedly compressed from back to front, whilst the 

 Eumorphid pupa is more or less cylindrical, i.e., of circular section. 

 Another frequent character (wanting in the pupa of S. stellatarum) 

 is a raised line or ridge across the anterior margin of the segment 

 dorsally, passing close in front of the spiracle as it fades out 



* Bacot has recently found v united with iv on a common base on the 1st 

 abdominal segment of the larva of Hyles euphorbiae in its first stadium, 



