yc2-/^3i- 



543. 



BATIA LUNARIS. 



The lesser tawny Crescent Moth. 



Order Lepidoptera. Fam. Tineidae. 



Type of the Genus, Recurvaria lunaris Haw. 

 Batia Step. — Galanthiai/wJ. — Recurvaria Haw. — Tinea Hiih., Don. 

 Antennae inserted close to the eyes, on the crown of the head, 

 moderately long and slender, composed of numerous slightly 

 tasselled joints, hairy beneath, the basal joint rather long cla- 

 vate and a little curved (1). 



Maxillce short, about the length of the palpi, spiral and clothed 

 with scales outside at the base (3). 



Labial palpi long slender recurved, divaricating (7, 4), clothed 

 with short scales (4) triarticulate, basal joint the shortest, 

 slightly clavate and curved, 2nd the longest and a little the 

 stoutest, 3rd somewhat shorter, slender and attenuated (4 a). 

 Head small and globose thickly clothed with scales, depressed in front, 

 eyes a little prominent and globose (7 front view of head, 7 * profile). 

 Thorax small, the scales depressed. Abdomen short and sletider, 

 a little tufted at the apex in the male, conical in the female. Wings 

 very much deflexed in repose, superior long and narrow, truncated 

 obliquely icith lofig spreading cilia ; inferior wings lanceolate, with 

 very long cilia, shortest above. Legs, anterior the shortest, poste- 

 rior the longest : thighs, jmsterior short; tibiae, anterior rather stout 

 and as long as the thigh, the others terminated by long spurs, the 

 hinder being very hairy, especially outside, with a pair of long spurs 

 also towards the base : tarsi 5 -Jointed, basal joint the longest : claws 

 and pulvilli minute (8 f hind leg). 

 Larvae unknoion. 



Lunaris Haw. — Curt. Guide, Gen. 1014. 5. 



In the Author's and other Cabinets. 



As I possess only two species of this genus, 1 am unable to as- 

 certain whether they all agree in structure. Hiihner's figure 

 of T. Jiavi front ella has not the habit of the type, and Donovan's 

 plate of T. Panzerella exhibits an insect very different in its 

 contour ; neither do Mr. Stephens's characters agree with these 

 insects, for he says the maxillae are rather long^ and the poste- 

 rior wings rather ample ovate, &c., and what we are to under- 

 stand by his description of the palpi is very uncertain, " the 

 basal joints," he says, are " clothed with longish scales, the 

 apical ones rather shorter, more slender than the foregoing and 

 as long as the other /wo." 



The following species have been enumerated as British ; 

 they are principally distinguished from neighbouring groups 

 by the shortness of the proboscis, and the remote situation of 

 one pair of spurs from the apex in the hinder legs. 

 L flavifrontella Fab.—Hiib. Tin. pi. 18.,/. 126. 



Expansion 12 lines: head and abdomen rufous, thorax and 



