Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/83

Rh 1. The Iuliform or pre-eminently typical, which are smooth and destitute of horns or other excrescences; for example, the caterpillars of cabbage butterflies. 2. Raptorial, or sub-typical. These are the type of evil, having the body covered with pungent spines, &c.; for example, the caterpillar of the peacock butterfly. 3. Natatorial or Anopluriform; caterpillars of the Hesperidæ, and Hawkmoths. 4. The Suctorial or Vermiform, called also the Onisciform; example, caterpillars of Polyommatus. 5. Rasorial or Thysanuriform; head and tail armed with spines; for example, the caterpillar of Pap. Cassiæ.

However much deserving of commendation certain parts of these classifications may be, they are far from being satisfactory on the whole. In a race of insects having the parts of the mouth, which afford such valuable characters in most other groups, so similar to each other, it can only be by a judicious combination of characters derived from all the different states, and not from one of them only, that a proper arrangement can be effected. The state of our knowledge is not at present such as to render an attempt of the kind advisable. A long and careful investigation of larvæ in their native haunts,—a more diligent search than has yet been made for the perfect insects, particularly of the smaller kinds, in foreign countries, must previously be undertaken. In scarcely any other department of exotic entomology has so little progress been made as in this. This has been partly owing to the