LIBRARY

496
COLLEGE ENTOMOLOGY
with pinkish hind wings and an expanse of 75-100 mm. The large smooth
green and brownish caterPillars feed on the needles of the yellow and Jeffrey
pines in the western pine belt including the Rocky, Cascade, and Sierra Nevada
Mountains. Two years are required to complete a generation, and the larval
often appear in large numbers. They have for ages been collected, dried, and
used for food by certain tribes of Indians, particularly in the Cascade and
Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Indians obtain these larvre by smoking the
trees, causing the caterpillars to drop to the ground, or capture them in
trenches as they descend to pupate in the litter and soil about the trunks of
the trees.
Another giant species which should be mentioned is the hercules moth,
Coscinoscera hercules Miskin of Australia and Papua, which is similar in general
aspects to the Atlas moth, is dark brown in COIOf, has a wing expanse of 270 mm.
(lOyz in.), according to Tillyard the greatest wing area of any moth in the
world, and has short tails on the hind wings.
B. Division RHOPALOCERA Dumeril 1806
KEY TO IMPORTANT SUPERFAMILIES
1. Antennae widely separated at bases and in most, but not all, groups the
club is prolonged into a recurved tip; R of fore wings five-branched
and all branches arising separately from the cell. Larvre usually
naked and with a constricted neck. Adults have a short erratic and
often swift flight. (Hesperiids, Sieippers.). . . . HESPERIOIDEA
Antenn!e close together at bases and the club more or less rounded
apically and never hooked; R. and R6 of fore wings stalked. Larvre
and adults exceedingly variable. (Butterflies.) . . PAPILIONOIDEAl p.499
(22) Superfamily HESPERIOIDEA Wallengren 1853
KEY TO FAMILIES
1. Hind wings with cell divided by forked base of M; M2 well developed;
male with frenulum. A single archaic Australian species, Euschemon
rojJlesia W. S. M. . . . . . . EUSCHEMONID'£
Hind wings with the base of M absent; M2 somewhat reduced or absent.
. . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Head narrower than metathorax; antennal club large, not extended into
a point or a hook; wing expanse 40 mm. or more. (Giant Skippers.)
MEGATHYMID1E
Head large; antennal club uSl1ally extended to a sharp point and crook;
wing expanse less than 40 mm. (Skippers.) . . HESPERIID1E p. 497
I The superfamily NYMPHALOIDEA is separated from the PAPILIONOIDEA by Till.
yard (1926).