284 Catalogue of North American Sphinges. 



rapidly vibrating wings above the blossoms, they might readily 

 be mistaken for humming-birds. The iEgeriae are also diurnal 

 in their habits. Their flight is swift, but not prolonged, and they 

 usually alight while feeding. In form and color they so much 

 resemble bees and wasps as hardly to be distinguished from them. 

 The Smerinthi are heavy and sluggish in their motions. They 

 fly only during the night, and apparently take no food in the 

 ■winged state, their maxillte or tongues being so short as to be 

 useless for this purpose. The GlaucopididfE, or Sphinges with 

 feathered antenna;, fly mostly by day, and alight to take their 

 food like the -S]geria», to which some of them bear a resemblance, 

 while others have nearly the form of Phalaena; or moths, with 

 which also they agree in their previous transformations. 



SYNOPSIS OF THE FAMILIES AND GENERA. 



It was not my intention originally to give here the characters 

 of the genera, but to refer the student for them to the works of 

 Latreilie and other entomologists. Upon further consideration, 

 however, I have thought that the labor of determining our Sphin- 

 ges by means of the catalogue would be much abridged, if a sy- 

 nopsis of the families and genera were to be prefixed to it. 



Class Insecta. 



Animals with jointed bodies, breatliing tlirougli lateral holes or spiracles, pro- 

 duced from eggs; while growing subject to a transformation of three stages ; in 

 the first stage called larviE, caterpillars, grubs, or maggots; in the second piipte, 

 nymphs, or chrysalids; in the third stage provided with wings, a body composed 

 of three distinct parts, the head, thorax or trunk, and the abdomen, and having 

 two compound eyes, two antonna>, from two to six palpi or feelers, and six legs. 



Order Lepidoptera. 



The young, called larvne or caterpillars, are provided with jaws, and from ten to 

 sixteen legs. They feed principally upon vegetable substances. The pupa; take 

 no food, are incapable of moving about, are apparently without legs, these parts 

 with their other members being folded up and firmly soldered to the body. In the 

 third stage they are, with few exceptions, provided with four wings, which, with 

 the body, arc more or less i:ovcrcd with little colored branny scales, lapping over 

 each other like the scales of fishes; their jaws are transformed to a tongue, more or 

 less long, and, when not in use, spirally rolled and concealed between the palpi. 



Section I. — Papiliones. 



Antennce threadlike and knobbed or thickened at the end. Wings not confined 

 by a bristle and hook ; all of them, or the first pair at least, elevated perpendicu- 



