318 
LEPIDOPTERA. 
Hesperia Wamsutta. Wamsiitta Skipper. (Fig. 141.) 
Dark brown above ; fore wings with a broken row of 
small tawny spots towards the tip, and in the males a large 
tawny patch covering the whole of the fore part of the wings 
Fig. 141. from the base to the middle, and an 
oblique curved black line behind it; 
hind wings with a small tawny dot 
before the middle, and an indented 
tawny band, or row of contiguous 
unequal spots ; under side of the fore wings light brown, 
and with larger yellow spots than on the other side, hind 
wings light brown, with two large irregular bright yellow 
spots connected in the middle and covering nearly the 
whole surface. 
Expands from -fu of an inch to nearly an inch. 
This species hardly differs fi’om Peck’s skipper, except 
in being uniformly smaller. It is a very common kind, 
and is found in meadows in the latter part of summer, 
particularly through the month of August. Wamsutta, 
whose name I have given it, was the oldest son of the 
Sachem Massasoit. 
There are a few more skippers in my collection, which 
were taken in Massachusetts, but some of them are not suffi¬ 
ciently perfect to be described, and of the others I have 
only one sex. 
II. HAWK-MOTHS. (Sphinges*) 
Linnaeus was led to give the name of Sphinx to the 
insects in his second group of the Lepidoptera, from a 
fancied resemblance that some of their caterpillars, when at 
rest, have to the Sphinx of the Egyptians. The attitude 
of these caterpillars is indeed very remarkable. Supporting 
themselves by their four or six hind legs, they elevate the 
See page 262 . 
