AN ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



closely resembled the cranberry stems and twigs that even to an 

 entomologist they were at first invisible. 



The balance of the Lepidoptera are classed in a general way as 

 " micro," or small, although as a matter of fact many of them 

 are larger than some of the ' ' macros. ' ' Yet, as a rule, the fam- 

 ilies contain small, and sometimes very small, forms. 



At the head of this aggregation is placed the superfamily 

 PyralididcE , which contains species of moderate size, varying 

 greatly in appearance. We have one series, the Pyraustidcs, 

 with slender bodies and rather thinly scaled wings. The pri- 

 maries are banded, the secondaries are moderate in size, never 

 larger than the fore-wings, and the colors are, as a rule, pale, 

 usually a light clay-yellow, while the markings, which are wavy, 

 are yellowish brown or black. The caterpillars in this series are 

 nearly always green, with pale stripes and spots ; sometimes 

 without any markings at all. The head is either black or yellow, 

 hard and shining, and there is a hard shield of the same color as 

 the head on the first thoracic segment. Most of them have the 

 abdominal legs crowned with a complete circlet of spines, and by 

 this character, which is an easy one to see, we can tell with al- 

 most absolute certainty the caterpillar of a micro from that of 

 a macro, in which the circlet of hooks is never complete, if we 

 except the Hepialidcs and Cossidcs, which will not confuse us, on 

 account of their great size and wood-boring habits. The pro- 

 legs are complete, — that is to say, there are four pairs, — and the 



Fig. 354. 



The pickle-moth, Margaronia nitidalis, and its larva; the latter shown on a small 

 cucumber which had been eaten into at b. 



insects have, therefore, no appearance of or relation to the 

 loopers, or GeometiHdcB. Many, perhaps most, of the caterpillars 

 are silk- spinners, and often five more or less concealed in folded 

 leaves held together by a few threads, or in tubes above or under 



