The Moths and Butterflies 
399 
and strawberries, both wild and cultivated. Calocalpe undulata (Fig. 578), 
the scallop-shell moth, has pale yellowish-brown wings crossed by many 
fine zigzag darker lines close together; its larvae feed on wild cherry and 
live gregariously inside of a nest formed of leaves tied together by silken 
threads. A very common little moth in meadows and gardens in summer 
and fall is the chickweed-geometer, Hczmatopis grataria , with reddish - 
Fig. 576. Fig. 577. Fig. 578. 
Fig. 576.—The currant-angerona, Angerona crocataria. (After Lugger; natural size.) 
Fig. 577.—The currant-endropia, Endropia armataria. (After Lugger; natural size.) 
Fig. 578.—The scallop-shell geometer, Calocalpe undulata. (After Lugger; natural size.) 
yellow wings and two transverse bands and the outer margins pinkish 
The chain-dotted geometer, Caterva catenaria, expanding ij inches, with 
white wings dotted with fine black points arranged in two lines and with 
a few extra ones, appears sometimes, according to Lugger, in such very 
great numbers as to look like a snow-storm; its larvae are pale straw-yellow 
with two fine lines on the back and two on each side interrupted by two 
Fig. 579.—The diverse-lined geometer, Petrophora diversilineata. (After Lugger; 
natural size.) * 
large black dots, a pair on each segment; it feeds on hazel, blackberry, 
raspberry, and other plants. 
A great host of somber-colored moths, blackish, grayish, or brownish, 
with no conspicuous markings and only rarely any bright colors, compose 
for the most part the family Noctuidae, the largest of all the families of moths. 
Twenty-one hundred North American species—three times as many as 
there are North American species of birds—belong to the single family 
Noctuidae, and for the most part these two thousand mixed species must be 
as one to the general collector and amateur. Few professional entomologists, 
indeed, lay claim to a systematic knowledge of the group, or even care to 
give to it the time necessary to acquire such a knowledge. Some of the 
