CHAPTER 
V. 
LEPIDOPTEEA. 
Caterpillars. — Butterflies. — Skippers. — Hawk-Moths. — ^Egerians or 
Borixg-Caterpillars. — Glaucopidians. — Moths. — Spinners. — Litho- 
siANS. — Tiger-Moths. — IIrmine-Moths. — Tussock-Moths. — Lackey- 
Moths. — Lappet-Moths. — Saturnians. — Ceratocampians. — Carpenter- 
Moths — PSYCHIANS. — NoTODONTIANS. — OWL-MOTHS. — CUT-WoRMS, — 
Geometers, or Span-Worms, and Canker-Worms. — Delta-^Ioths. — 
Leaf-Rollers — Bud-Moths—- Fruit-Moths.— Bee-Moths.— Corn-Moths. 
— Clothes-Moths. — Feather-winged Moths. 
T here are perhaps no insects which are so commonly 
and so universally destructive as caterpillars; they are 
inferior only to locusts in voracity, and equal or exceed them 
in their powers of increase, and in general are far more 
widely spread over vegetation. Caterpillars are the young 
of butterflies and of moths ; and of these, five hundred spe¬ 
cies, which are natives of Massachusetts, are already known 
to me, and probably there are at least as many more kinds 
to be discovered within the limits of this Commonwealth.^ 
As each female usually lays from two hundred to five hun¬ 
dred essSi one thousand different kinds of butterflies and 
moths will produce, on an average, three hundred thousand 
caterpillars ; if one half of this number, when arrived at 
[ 1 The number of species in the United States may fairly be estimated at 3,500, 
or even more. My Catalogue, published by the Smithsonian Institute, contains 
the names of nearly 1,800 already described by various authors, exclusive of 
Microlepidoptera, which is a numerous family of itself, and comparatively little 
progress has as yet been made in the discovery of our indigenous species gen¬ 
erally. The latest and most complete ■work on German and Swi.'is Lepidoptera 
{Die Sckmetterlinge Deuischlands und der Schweiz,yon H. v. Heinemann, Bininswick, 
1859) gives 1,387 species, exclusive of Microlepidoptera, in those two countries 
alone, and we can confidently reckon on finding over three times that number in 
the United States. — Morris ] 
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