(24) 



are yellowish grey with a broad dull brown border and a narrow transverse line 

 beyond the middle. 



Underside: the wings in jwpix have pale grey bordere; in vai-iegaia these 

 borders are broadly dark brown, while the rest of the wings is much more whitish. 

 Abdomen on underside in varieijata much dirtier greyish white. The antennae are 

 longer and thicker, and the mcde claspers are larger. 



Expanse: forewing A!M 25 mm.; EM 12 mm. ; I'.AI 17 mm. 

 „ hindwiug „ 17 „ ; „ 12 „ ; „ 10 „ 



Hub. San Augustine, near iNIapiri, Bolivia, 3500 feet (Arthui- Jlaxwell Stuart, 

 September and October 1895); 2 <J. W- K- 



AGAIUSTIDAE. 



Note. — My attention was drawn to the definition of this family especially by 



Prof. Dr. Karseh's article on the African AgarisHdae in Ent. Nachr. p. 343 (1895), 



where that learned author says that, according to Anrivillius, the Agaristidae are 



Noctuid-Uke moths distinguished from the allied families by vein 5 of the hindwing 



originating from the apex of the cell in the middle between veins 4 and 6 ; a short 



definition which I found in discordance with Hampson, Moths of India II. — a work 



which every student of moths will appreciate the more the longer he works witli it, 



though in detail it is, of com'se, not free from errors — who includes in the Koctuidae 



a number of forms which Karseh's definition would bring to the Agaristidae, and I 



became convinced that a few stray notes on the structure of some genera and species of 



the Agaristids would be of some help in coming in future to an exact delimitation of the 



))resent family. Karseh's definition is based upon that of Aurivillius in Ent. Tidskr. 



p. 183 (1892) — in fact it is only a repetition of one of the nine characters by which 



Aurivillius distinguishes that family ; and I therefore shall annex my notes to those 



nine characters, which I give in the same order as Aurivillius did. 



1. " Stim aufgeblasen oder niit einer hornigen Erhabenheit." 



The forehead is indeed mostly gibbose and often armed with a more or less 



prominent conical processus, which is truncate at the tip, and bears a circular or 



subcircular ridge. In Trimen's Pais pidchra, and in a new genus and species from 



Madagascar described in tliis paper, the processus is long and thin ; in Copidryas 



gloveri S. & E., Ajnna caUisto \A'lk., and in Butler's Aegocera cm-nigera it is naked 



and has the form of a flattened, slightly excavated horn, the tip of which is rounded, 



or bi- or tripartite, recalling the frontal horn of certain Cetonidae. . A great number 



of Agaristids have, however, the forehead only slightly convex, such species as 



Agarista saturata Wlk. and allies for example, and are without a frontal processus 



or horn, the circular ridge also being wanting ; while on the other hand well-developed 



frontal horns occur amongst the Koctuidae. Agrotis segetum Schiflf. has a feeble, but 



distinctly visible, frontal circular ridge. In Cramer's Phalaena hyrogiyphica (Pap. 



Ex. II. t. 147. f. I)) the front of the head is produced into a short cone. Agropkila 



sulphuralis (L.), various species of Aconlia 0. and of allied genera — for example 



A. dispar Wlk. (Lep. Het. B. M. XII. p. 790), Omia cymhalariae Hb., Heliodes 



rupicoki Hb. — have a more or less obviously gibbose forehead with a circular horny 



ridge ; whereas in the species of Megalodes Guen. the head is armed with a long 



horn as in Copidryas and Apina. Vein 5 of the hindwings comes in the Noctuids 



mentioned here from below the middle of the discocellular veinlets. 



