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LEPIDOPTERA 453
may be entirely or only partly covered with scales, and frequently the hind
pair and much of the fore pair are transparent. This characteristic, together
with the slender form, rather long legs, and coloration, gives them the general
appearance of several kinds of wasps. Even in flight certain species mimic wasps.
The antennre may be dilated apically and terminate in a bristle or tuft, rarely
pectinate. Proboscis is well developed. slender, naked; maxillary palpi vestigial
and porrect or absent; labial palpi acute, upturned; legs rather long, spurred,
often with stiff tufts of hairs. Fore wings narrow, fully clothed with scales or
partly transparent; accessory cell and base of medial absent; anal area greatly
reduced, anal veins reduced; hind wings usually transparent except the margins;
frenulum simple. Abdomen clothed with smooth, closely appressed scales and
hairs, six-segmented in female and seven-segmented in male; male with conspicuous
anal tuft. Eggs oval, flattened, reticulated. Caterpillars cylindrical,
white or pale, wrinkled; with small inconspicuous setre, five pairs of prolegs,
each of the four median pairs with two transverse rows of crochets, the anal
pair with a single row. They live as borers in roots, trunks, crowns. and limbs
of woody shrubs and trees. Pupre free with two rows of dorsal spines, last segment
with ventral spines; skin partly withdrawn from cocoon upon emergence
of adult.
The adults are very beautiful moths which are either weak or strong fliers
and may often be seen resting upon the leaves. limbs, and trunks of trees or
hovering about the hosts. The eggs are scattered on the bark of the trunks.
limbs, and crowns. The larVa! feed in the crowns and small twigs or under the
bark of trunks and larger limbs. A number of species are serious pests of wild
and cultivated plants. Pupation occurs in a cocoon constructed of silk, frass.
and refuse within, at the entrance of, or just outside the burrows.
The family is a relatively small one and is well represented in the forested
areas of the tropical and temperate regions. The taxonomy of the family is in a
state of some confusion owing to a lack of agreement concerning the genera
and the species included. The most important genera and species are &gerz'a
Fab.: A. apiformis (Clerck), 15-20 rum. expanse, black and brownish with
yellow markings on the head and thorax and yellow bands on the reddish abdomen.
The larVa! infest chiefly poplars and willows throughout much of Europe,
Asia, and North America. Bembicia Hubner: B. hyheiformis (Laspeyres)
(Palrearctic) and B. 11larginata (Harris) (Nearctic) are common species, the
larvre of which bore into the stems of berries, Rubus spp. Cham;esphecia Beuten·
muller is a large and important genus.
DJE to embrace those species named in the genera /Egeria and Synanthedon. A study of these
various genera and species indicate that the family SESIIDtE was intended to embrace certain
Clear-winged moths now generally included in the family SPHINGIDIE, and it should therefore
be considered a synonym of the latter, whereas the JEGERIIDtE holds precedence as the
proper family name for the clear-winged or glassy-winged moths. This latter name has been
accepted by such authorities as Busck 1909, Rothachild 1911. Le Cerf 1911-1929, Holland
1913, Barnes and McDunnough 1917, Hampson 1919. Zukowsky 1921-1929, Forbes 1923.
Dalla Tone and Strand 1925, Tillyard 1926, Ga'ldc 1929, Seitz 1930, Matsumura 1931, Brues
and Melander 1932, and Hering 1932. The arrangement of species ia that of Dalla Torre
and Strand.