1900.] 143 



Carudrina obtusa, Leucania Loreyi, L. tacuna, Feld., L. torrentium, L. monosticta, 

 Churia iconica, Cosmophila sabulifera, C. erosa and its variety xanthyndyna, 

 Oresia argyrosigma, O. emarginata, Deva natalensis, Prodenia littoralis, and many 

 more, some of them apparently quite new.] 



[From a much more recent letter.] " These, Achcsa Lienardi and Serrodes 

 inara, are so wonderfully abundant this year as to cause general comment and notice 

 in the papers. They are mostly obtained from the peaches, and they spoil the fruit 

 in the same manner as the ' fruit-moth.' It also is here, but is not so abundant as 

 last year. The beautiful bronze moths with jagged edges, Oresia argyrosigma, are 

 like them in their habits at the fruit ; indeed, one often catches ihem together ofE 

 the same peach." 



[The iine parcel of these moths, to which the present letter refers, has, I fear, 

 gone down with the " Mexican."] 



Oonometa postica, 1^ , Wlk. — "I have a creature with a yellow body which 

 came out of a chrysalis brought from Annshaw. I scarcely expected anything, for 

 it had been shut up in a tin for a long time, and when it emerged it caught its feefc 

 in some wadding and beat itself about. The cocoon was found on a tamarisk tree." 



[This is one of the very few species in which the male is dwarfed, and distorted 

 as to its wings, while the female is well developed, large and handsome, and the extra- 

 ordinary appearance of the specimen in question is not due wholly to the wadding. 

 Its cocoon is very coarse and hard, larger than that of Lasiocampa quercus, and its 

 outer surface covered all over with the short, stiff, prickly hairs of the larva. It is 

 fastened, down its side, to a stick, something in the same manner as that of Odonestis 

 potatoria. The end is thrust widely open on the emergence of the moth, without 

 the removal of a lid, and so remains, showing a perfectly round orifice.] 



Gynanisa maia,K\ag. — " Arthur has found a' beautiful big flat moth under a 

 tiny bush, probably just emerged, for they dug and found fragments of a chrysalis, 

 which I send. The moth was spreading itself out on a cloudy day, perhaps drying 

 its wings." [The fragments of the very large pupa-skin were quite dirty on the 

 outside, showing that to all appearance this grand species, closely as it resembles 

 a large Saturnia, forms no silken coecon, but pupates nakedly in the earth !] 

 " Arthur has caught two more, one in a doorway, the other at the foot of a tree, with 

 the chickens pecking at it, which attracted his attention. It always seems to sit 

 with its wings outspread. I have found another in the open veldt. They had been 

 digging a little child's grave, and when we went down to the funeral I saw a little 

 boy stamp violently on something in the grass, and looking closer I found this moth, 

 and brought it home in my handkerchief." [Some of these specimens arrive in 

 wonderfully fine condition, considering the treatment that they seem to have received.] 



" I have reared two specimens from some very beautiful caterpillars that a 

 native servant brought me. They were light green, with longitudinal rows of 

 alternate silver and gold spikes all along the sides and back. The spikes looked 

 like real gold and silver ornaments. They were found on Mimosa. I was thinking 

 whether I could figure them, when they buried themselves." [From a larva sub- 

 sequently found my correspondent sends a drawing of this noble creature. The 

 spikes are fleshy tubercles, in dorsal and subdorsal rows, and the golden, and 

 especially silver, metallic markings, are very wonderful.] 



