SPHINGIDAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
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14. Family: Sphingidae. 
it was K. Jordan who in Vol. II (p. 229) already pointed out the homogeneousness of the exterior of 
all the moths belonging to this family. He described all the three stages of the Sphingidae in such a correct 
and precise way that we merely need to refer to that passage. In fact, already the earliest authors working with 
the most imperfect means of help have made very few mistakes in classifying the lepidoptera from this family; 
they especially included by mistake certain Notodontidae in the Sphingidae, mostly because they had defective 
or deformed specimens before them. Owing to this homogeneousness it is rather easy to decide whether an 
insect belongs to this family or not, but on the other hand it is difficult to define the single genera and groups 
of genera; this task, however, has been most classically solved, in spite of this difficulty, in the excellent mono- 
graphy of Rothschild and Jordan, which we have already referred to in Vol. X (p. 524). 
As nearly all the Sphingidae are most conspicuous insects, mostly also of very large or medium sizes, 
they have always created special interest also among the laymen. Specimens captured partly on flowers partly 
on the lantern were particularly often brought from abroad to European Museums and private collections, 
so that our knowledge of the more conspicuous forms has made more rapid progress than that of those families 
containing more insignificant lepidopteral forms or composed entirely of such forms. The first catalogue by 
Kirby, which was fairly complete considering the time of its origin in 1892, comprised the names of 912 species; 
ten years later, Rothschild and Jordan enumerated 770 species, whilst the latest list (in Junk’s Lepidopte- 
rorum Catalogus) drafted by H. Wagner in the years 1913—1919 records 849 species. The strange fact that 
the number of species has not increased but descreased within 30 or 40 years is not due to the reason that 
formerly described species have been lost or omitted, but that forms which were formerly regarded as species 
have meanwhile been recognized to be modifications of other species, or geographical representatives, local 
forms, condition forms, or slight deviations not worth being denominated. 
It has already been stated in Vol. XIV (p. 353) that the resemblance of the shape is to be considered 
as the consequence of the adaptation to a highly developed air-life. The body has almost exactly the shape 
of a fish or gull, or of a humming-bird the flying power of which is scarcely to be excelled. It is the same, almost 
cigar-like shape of the body, which has been applied in aviation in the shape of the Zeppelins and in the bodies 
of aeroplanes, and which has thus also been acknowledged in technics to be the most serviceable for aviation. 
This eminent flying power has also led to an extensive geographical distribution (cf. Vol. X) so that we 
meet with Sphingidae not only in all the continents but sometimes even in quite remote islands, as for instance 
Herse convolvuli in New Zealand, all of which we immediately recognise to have immigrated across wide oceans 
The general distribution of the Sphingid family over the whole globe is chiefly adjusted to the climatic 
conditions; the number of both their individuals and species decreases quickly towards the polar regions, 
being largest in the watery forests of tropical and subtropical countries and sometimes decreases to nought in 
deserts lacking every vegetation. This is the case in all the continents; the same in America as in the warm 
countries of the Old World. Moreover, the family also lacks all the real cold forms, i. e. we do not know of any 
species which, on its wanderings from warm zones to colder districts, would appreciably change its exterior: 
it is merely sterility that ensues, which is recently presumed to be chiefly an effect of the cold, preventing at 
the same time their settlement at the excentric destination of their wanderings. 
As the American Continent in Mexico is divided by a desert into a northern and a southern section, 
the fauna of the southern nearctic region is also separated from that of the northern neotropical region. Of 
