512 ME. A. Q. BUTLER ON THE SPHINGIDCE. 



the power of emitting sounds much resembling the creaking of a boot. The manner in 

 which these sounds are produced has been the subject of discussion amongst naturalists 

 since the year 1742 ; this point, however, has been satisfactorily settled by Mr. Moseley 

 ('Nature,' vol. vi. pp. 151-153), who has demonstrated the existence of a cavity in the 

 head, which by the alternate action of elevating and depressing muscles is caused to 

 serve as a pair of bellows, by means of which air is forced through the exceedingly short 

 proboscis ; this organ is thus converted into a small trumpet. The Sphingince are re- 

 markable for the length of their proboscides, in which respect they offer a striking contrast 

 to the preceding subfamily. Amphonyx cluentius, as mentioned by Mr. A. R. "Wallace 

 in the ' Quarterly Journal of Science ' for 1807 (p. 477), has this organ developed to the 

 extraordinary length of 9 \ inches ; and Mr.Wallace confidently looks forward to the dis- 

 covery of a Sphinx in Madagascar with a proboscis 11 to 12 inches in length ; his antici- 

 pation is based upon the fact that the nectaries of Angrcecum sesquipedale vary in length 

 from 10 to 14 inches, and must therefore in all probability be fertilized by some such 

 hitherto undiscovered agent. 



The first attempt at any thing like a comprehensive paper on the Sphingidoe was 

 published in 1855 by Burmeister in the ' Abhandlungen der naturforschenden Gesell- 

 schaft zu Halle,' and was entitled " Systematische Uebersicht der Sphingiden Brasiliens ; " 

 it contained descriptions of new genera and species, and gave a list of the then known 

 Sphingidoe of South America. This paper was followed in the succeeding year by the 

 seventh volume of Mr. Walker's ' Lepidoptera Heterocera,' in which an endeavour was 

 made to bring together the recorded species from all parts of the world ; and, consider- 

 ing how little was then known respecting the family, there can be no doubt that this 

 catalogue was the best that Mr. Walker ever produced. No attempt was made at classi- 

 fication ; therefore it is not surprising that nearly allied species appeared in widely 

 sundered genera. Still the omissions are not many, and, but for that indefatigable Lepi- 

 dopterist Mr. W. F. Kirby, would probably, with a few exceptions, have still remained 

 undiscovered. The next list of species appeared in 1857, in Horsfield and Moore's 

 Catalogue of the Lepidoptera in the Museum of the East-India Company,' and added a 

 few descriptions ; it was followed two years later by a very careful paper by Dr. Clemens 

 in the ' Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ' (2nd ser. vol. iv.), 

 entitled " Synopsis of North-American Sphingidce." This communication was full of 

 valuable information ; and for the first time an effort was made to classify the genera and 

 species ; it was superseded, however, a few years afterwards by " A Synonymical Cata- 

 logue of North-American Sphingidce, with Notes and Descriptions," in the fifth volume 

 of the ' Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia,' from the pens of 

 those well-known and able Lepidopterists Messrs. Grote and Robinson. This was a most 

 important paper, inasmuch as it revised most of the New- World genera, throwing them 

 into natural subfamilies. In the same volume of the ' Proceedings ' appeared several of 

 Mr. Grote's papers on the Sphingidce of Cuba, abounding with critical and interesting 



