CLEAR-WING MOTHS OF FAMILY AEGERIIDAE 185 



Male. — Antennae dark green-black, bipectinate and ciliate. Labial 

 palpus orange-yellow. Head with top and occipital fringe dark olive; 

 face white, tinged with yellow. Collar red. Thorax dark brown, with 

 green and blue reflections and sprinkled with white-tipped scales, beneath 

 marked with orange-red. Abdomen red, each segment with a broad, blue- 

 black posterior band, which is narrowly edged with golden-yellow at the 

 sides ; anal tuft short, black above, orange beneath, like the abdomen. 

 Fore and middle legs orange, tarsi black, banded with white ; posterior 

 legs very hairy, the hair long on the inner side and short outwardly, red 

 and black above between the black, white tufted spurs and on tarsi. Fore- 

 wing opaque, metallic dark olive-green, densely freckled with white-tipped 

 scales, producing a pearly effect, which is a specific feature; wing base 

 touched with orange. Hindwing transparent, veins, margins, and fringes 

 dark olive-green, wing base touched with orange ; underside of forewing 

 orange at base, with a longer orange edge on costa, and metallic golden 

 irrorations to outer margin. 



Female. — Larger and stouter than the male. Antennae simple ; ab- 

 domen cylindrical, bright red and more contrastingly banded with black; 

 anal tuft small, pointed, black above, red beneath. 



Expanse: Male 40 mm., female 44 mm. 



Distribution. — Southwestern Texas, Mexico. 



Type. — Male? In the Chicago Natural History Museum. 



Remarks. — The rough white-tipped scales on the forewings and body 

 of this species are dependable structures for separation from M. gloriosa, 

 which is nearest in coloration and in size but has flat unicolored scales. 

 A good series from Texas agrees perfectly with Strecker's description 

 of Trochilium grande which was based on a specimen from Texas. Beuten- 

 miiller described and illustrated as M. grandis a female from Arizona, 

 particularly emphasizing "abdomen brown above." The abdomen of 

 typical grandis is red, banded transversely with black. Very few speci- 

 mens of grandis have been collected in Arizona. Only two females from 

 Arizona have been available for the present study, one from the Neu- 

 moegen collection and the other from the E. L. Graef collection. They 

 are well preserved but old and probably faded. One of these apparently 

 served Beutenmiiller for his illustration. The Arizona specimens are 

 conspecific but sufficiently different to warrant recognition as a variety, 

 which I name hermosa. 



Field investigations show a distribution for M. grandis in Texas from 

 Austin and San Antonio to the Gulf coast and along the Rio Grande to 

 the Big Bend ; and probably the species extends westward into Arizona. 

 Its native home is Mexico. Melittia beckeri Druce from Durango, Mex- 

 ico, is this species. 



A relationship with M. cucurbitae is shown by the male genitalia in 

 the much produced apex of the harpe, which in the other species of the 



