Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/120

104 PHILAMPELUS VITIS.

PLATE V.

first examining this beautiful sphinx, we are at some loss to determine to which of the modern genera of the family it should be referred. It has obviously some relationship to Daphnis, and the attenuated anterior segments of the caterpillar might lead us at first sight to suppose it to be a species of Metopsilus. We soon perceive, however, that these segments are not so suddenly narrowed, and therefore not so perfectly retractile as in a genuine Chenille cochonne, while the absence of the lateral ocellated marks is a still further proof of deviation from that genus. After fully considering its peculiarities, Dr. Harris, in his valuable Memoir on the American Sphingidæ, found it necessary to make it the type of a new genus, which he names Philampelus. He says, of this and the other insects belonging to the genus so designated, "They cannot with propriety be included in the genus Chærocampa of Duponchel or Metopsilus of Duncan, to which they approach the nearest. They, indeed, seem to form a characteristic and typical group peculiar to the New World." Besides the species here figured, S. sabellitia and S. achemon belong to this group.