OF INSECTS. 
317 
their eggs in the bottom of holes and fissures, in 
the bark of trees, &c. which they might not other- 
wise be capable of reaching. 
Order VII. — Lepidoptera. 
This order includes the well known tribes of butter- 
flies, hawk-motlis, and moths properly so called, all 
of which possess the common property of having 
the wings, which are four in number, covered with 
small scales or feather-like bodies. It is to this the 
name refers, being derived from XeKng, a scale. No 
kind of insects are more dissimilar in their different 
stages of metamorphosis. When they issue from the 
egg they appear in the familiar form of caterpillars, 
these change into a chrysalis, from which the perfect 
butterfly is in due time produced. Unfortunately 
we do not yet possess a complete systematic arrange- 
ment and description of these insects, at least not 
one conformable to the most recent and approved 
method of classification. This is the case in par- 
ticular with the nocturnal Lepidoptera or moths, 
many of which are still undescribed. Our native 
species, however, of which there are nearly 2000, 
have been well described by Stephens in liis Illus- 
trations of British Entomology, by Haworth in his 
Lepidoptera Britannica, and in several other works. 
Among the best works on exotic Lepidoptera may 
be mentioned Horsficdd's Lepidoptera Javanica, 
Boisduval’s Species General des Lepidopteres, (Paris, 
