248 f^P"!' 



a row of elongated spots on tlie margin on each side of the nervules, all violet-blue 

 suffused with white. ? . Anterior-wings with a broad curved band across the centre 

 of the wings from the costa to the inner margin, and two white transverse spots near 

 the apex. Posterior-wings : the inner half, from near the base, white, suffused with 

 violet, a sub-marginal row of small white spots, and a marginal white line intercepted 

 by the nervures, both suffused with violet. 



Under-side. Both wings as in Ch. CitTiceron, except that the central black line 

 across both wings, which is broadly bordered on the outside with white, is straight 

 and continuous, not irregular and internapted as in Citharon. This species on the 

 upper-side has a general resemblance to Cithceroyi, it is more violet-blue, and is 

 smaller in size, particularly the female, which is not &o large as the male CithcBron, 

 while the under-side of both sexes is very distinct from Cithceron. Exp. 3^ in. 



Sab. : Delagoa Bay. 

 London : February, 1885. 



THE LIFE-HISTORY OF ASOPIA {PYRALIS) FAMINALIS. 

 BY THE REV. J. HELLINS, M.A. 



In his prefatory remarks on Pyralis., Guenee wrote that nothing 

 showed the negligence of entomologists more plainly than their 

 ignorance of the metamorphoses of the species placed by him in that 

 genus ; and, to say nothing of the appearance of farinalis in one's 

 house, certainly to see the moth, as I have, sitting by hundreds on the 

 walls of a mill, one would think it was easy enough to find the larva: 

 yet the late Mr. Buckler, living in a house with a flour-mill attached 

 to it, met with considerable diflficulty in obtaining the larva of this 

 " Miihlgiingler," as Dr. E. Hofmann calls it : it was not to be found on 

 the floors, but had to be hunted out very carefully under projecting 

 ledges of portions of the machinery, where it could form its galleries in 

 safety ; he obtained a few examples also from a stable, where they 

 were feeding in company with A. pinguinalis on mixed rubbish well 

 hidden under an oat-bin. 



Farinalis may fairly be called a domestic insect, and, contrary to 

 the more common lot of Lepidoptera, it has rather profited than other- 

 wise from human progress : as one can scarcely conceive of any 

 natural collection of seeds or stalks which would nourish it in such 

 numbers as may now be seen. 



The moth, I know, begins to appear towards the end of June, and 

 continues its flight through July and August ; the larva apparently is 

 hatched in less than a month after the e^g has been laid, and, as Mr. 

 Buckler told me he had satisfactorily ascertained, lives through two 

 winters, becoming a pupa in May or June of the second year ; and the 

 pupa state lasts about a month. 



The egg is rather long oval in outline, somewhat flattened, about 

 •65 mm. long, and '35 mm. wide ; the shell very thin and soft, finely 

 granulated or wrinkled all over, glistening, in colour dirty white. 



