Subfamily Megathyminæ (the Giant Skippers)
These curious insects have been by some writers placed among the Castniidæ, a family of day-flying moths, but as the author stated in 1898 in “The Butterfly Book,” they appear to have much more in common with the Hesperiidæ than the Castniidæ. The proposition to include them in the Hesperiidæ as a subfamily under the name given above has since that time been generally accepted by systematists. There are a number of species belonging to the genus Megathymus, several of which occur within our faunal limits, but we shall content ourselves with figuring only the one, which those readers of this book who live in Missouri and south and west of that state are likely to see.