532 
LEP1D0PTERA. 
pointed at the apex and commonly upturned. The legs are long and 
spurred, the wings variously held but not wrapped round the abdomen. 
Fig. 344— Gelechia gossypiella, larva, pupa, cocoon, imago. 
The life-history of a considerable number of Indian forms is known ; 
the egg is flattened, oval or round, often reticulate above ; eggs are so 
far as known laid singly. The larva is slender, usually with five pairs 
of prolegs, the body almost naked, and usually simply coloured, dirty 
white, orange, greenish or nearly black. The larval habits are extremely 
varied, some being seed-eaters, others living in spun leaves, boring in 
shoots, mining in leaves or in the bark of shoots ; some are household 
pests in flour and dried food stuffs, some eat dried insects, wool, etc., a 
few eat lac, scale insects and mealy bugs, while probably many live in 
dried leaves, under bark and in other dead vegetable matter. Very 
little is known with regard to hibernation and the like. In the main, 
the larvae are found when vegetation is most abundant in the moist 
months ; these often hibernate as larvae and pupae, but Leucoptera 
sphenograpta, for instance, emerges very abundantly as a moth in 
January to await the putting forth of new leaves by the sissu trees in 
February. Plutella crucifer arum, Zell., is a “ cold weather ” species (as 
are some other insects probably spread from temperate regions) in the 
plains and is found abundantly then ; it appears to spend the hot 
\yeather and rains in retirement at the roots of grass as an imago. 
