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HESPERIIDiE. 
flying long after dusk; others seem to delight in the hottest sunshine, but the majority appear to 
be most active early in the morning, soon after sunrise, and late in the afternoon and evening. 
Most of them have an exceedingly swift, erratic flight; some of the larger and swifter species make 
a loud humming noise, so rapidly do they cleave the air. They do not, however, usually take 
long flights, but often rest on foliage, suddenly darting away and for a time lost to view: when in 
a moment they will again be perceived, often resting on the same leaf whence they first took flight. 
Most Hesperids are very fond of flowers of all kinds, and Lantana is here a great favourite with 
them; some Hesperids whilst feeding rapidly vibrate their wings and appear scarcely to touch the 
flowers with their tarsi, moving rapidly from one bloom to another much like the Humming-bird 
hawk-moth. When settled the Hesperids either raise their wings above the body, or raise the 
forewings above the body and expand the hindwings horizontally—the latter being a characteristic 
position with these insects. 
The larvae are, most of them, easily distinguishable from other butterfly larvae; the body 
is usually thick at the middle, tapering rather rapidly towards each end, the posterior segments 
rather flattened, the anterior segments very small in diameter so as to form a sort of neck, giving the 
head great freedom of movement. The lower part of the head (jaws) is usually projected forwards when 
the larva is at rest on aflat surface, the top of the head sloping backwards from the jaws. The 
larvae are generally smooth or sparsely hairy, and mostly very soberly coloured. When just 
hatched they all seem to be cylindrical, whatever may be their shape later. They live in the 
rolled-up leaves of their foodplants, or draw a few leaves together with silk to form a shelter; some 
species (and many very young larvae) eat away a channel from the edge of the leaf towards the 
mid-rib at two spots rather farther apart than the length of the larva; the piece between the two 
channels is then turned over gradually by spinning threads of silk across at intervals, till at last the 
edge meets the main portion of the leaf, forming a rough tube or shelter, more or less open at the 
ends. Thin, narrow leaves such as bamboo are usually rolled up helically from the tip, the rolling 
being performed by degrees and the turns secured with silk as the rolling-up proceeds; the lower 
end of the tube thus formed is sometimes partly closed but often left open, and the upper end 
closed by bringing the tube at a sharp angle with the blade of the leaf and fixing it with silk. The 
larvae eat away at the open end of the tube till it becomes too short to hide them properly, when 
they remove to another leaf and twist up a new tube. Generally larvae which are nearly fullgrown 
preserve their tubes intact, and eat the neighbouring foliage, retiring into their shelters to rest. 
A larva just hatched often selects the extreme tip of the leaf, and resting lengthways of the mid-rib 
it gradually draws up together the halves of the leaf by attaching strands of silk to both edges 
across the blade—perhaps four or five stitches at intervals for a distance of a little more than the 
length of the larva. I believe the rapid contraction of the silk draws the leaf up, more than actual 
muscular strength, at least in the case of very young larvae. As the leaf-blade slowly folds together, 
more silk is added to the strands till at last the larva is completely concealed. Those larvae which 
live in leaf-tubes appear to make use of but one leaf, unlike the larvae of several small moths which 
draw up together several leaves. Hesperid larvae are, so far as I am aware, not gregarious, but lead 
solitary lives, each within its own shelter into which it rapidly withdraws at the least sign of danger. 
