Quail. — On Epalxiphora axenana. 343 



Art. XXXI. — Epalxiphora axenana, Meyr. : a Species of Lepi- 

 doptera scarce in New Zealand. 



By Ambrose Quail, F.E.S. (London). 



[Bead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 1st June, 1904.] 



Plate XXI. 

 This species of Lepidoptera I found of considerable interest. 

 It occurs throughout New Zealand from early summer to winter, 

 but seems to be scarce everywhere, though its relative scarcity 

 probably depends to some extent upon climatic conditions. 

 During the summer of 1901-2 sunshine was continuous through- 

 out, and Epalxiphora axenana occurred in considerable numbers 

 in the strip of sparsely wooded bush reserve where I had pre- 

 viously taken the species but sparingly. I do not know where 

 the males rest, but have beaten them from brown dry leaves of 

 tree-ferns, and also from the green leaves of the food-plant. 

 I do not remember to have ever seen a male resting in an 

 exposed situation ; the females, however, rest exposed on the 

 upper side of a leaf of Piper excelsum (its food-plant), where the 

 coloration is rather conspicuous, but the shape of the insect 

 with its wings closed is not mothlike — i.e., not conspicuously so. 

 The position taken up by the females is not accidentally due to 

 the drying of the wings on emergence from the pupa, which takes 

 place during the afternoon. The insect flies at dusk, whereas 

 my specimens have always been taken during the forenoon, 

 and from two so taken I procured ova which were fertile, proving 

 the insects had been flying the previous night. 



Mr. Meyrick has twice published his diagnoses of the genus 

 Epalxiphora* His description of the species was made from a 

 single $ specimen taken off a tree-trunk in Wellington, New 

 Zealand. The sexual dimorphism of the species makes descrip- 

 tions of the 2 2a necessity. The costa of anterior wings is 

 in males curved, in females elbowed ; the anterior-wing markings 

 differ between the sexes : $ pattern is divided into basal and 

 outer areas, with a characteristic buff apical tip ; 2 pattern is 

 composed of transverse and longitudinal markings usually, but 

 this sex is very variable. A bright-orange basal streak on costa 

 of posterior wings $ (covered by anterior wings) is not present 

 in 2 • The only mark of anterior wings which appears to be 

 present in both sexes is a crescentic or angular mark about the 

 middle of the inner margin, which, when the wings are closed 

 together edge to edge over the back, forms a characteristic ocel- 

 lated spot. 



* Meyr., Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 1881, 648; Trans. N.Z. Inst., xvii., 

 147. 



