CYNANISA. 99 



and golden spots beneath ; there are also brown spots on the 

 back, on which stand a few long bristles. When they are 

 full-grown they are too heavy to walk on the upper side of the 

 branches of the trees, but walk with their backs downwards. 

 The cocoon is enclosed in one or more leaves, and attached 

 to the branch by a strong peduncle. 



The silk can be wound without very much difficulty, and 

 yields a coarse, dark-coloured, and very durable silk, which is 

 woven into a kind of cloth which is much used by the natives. 



The oak-feeding silkworms of China and Japan {A?ithera^a 

 peniyi and A. yamamai of Guerin-Meneville) are so similar 

 to A. jnylitta^ besides being extremely variable, that they 

 might easily be supposed to have been off-shoots from the 

 same stock at no very distant date. Both of them yield a 

 valuable silk ; and attempts have been made to rear them in 

 Europe, but with no very great success, as they are by no 

 means as hardy as the far less valuable Attacus cynthia and 

 its allies. 



GENUS GYNANISA. 

 Gynanisa, Walker, List Lepid. Ins. Brit. Mus., vi., p. 1267 



(1855)- 

 This genus differs from its allies in having the wings 

 coarsely scaled, and the hind margins slightly denticulated. 

 The costa of the fore-wings is arched towards the tip, which 

 is rather pointed, but not hooked, and the hind margin is 

 oblique. The hind-wings are very ample, and the abdomen 

 is longer than in many of the Satiiniiidcp, extending, in the 

 female, nearly as far as the anal angle. There is a small 

 vitreous spot on the fore-wings, but the eye-spot on the hind- 

 wings is of enormous size, its concentric rings covering almost 

 the whole wing. The antennae are strongly pectinated, and the 

 palpi are better developed than usual in the Satur?iiidce. 



H 2 



