BRAHjVLEA. By Dr. A. Seitz. 227 



15. Family: Brahmaeidse. 



This group comprises about one and a half to two dozen of highly peculiar but very similar species. 

 All are large and rather clumsy moths, with markings so characteristic that they at once catch the eye even 

 in large and mixed collections. The wing is divided into an outer half traversed by ten parallel wavy lines, 

 which on the hindwing directly touches an often uniformly dark basal area, but on the forewing borders on a 

 band which is sometimes modified at the inner margin to form an ocellus-like disc. The basal area of the fore- 

 wing again contauis a number of those peculiar parallel lines, which renders the scheme of markings so confus- 

 sing, and the biological significance of which we do not yet understand. And as if even Nature could not carry out 

 so complicated a pattern in all its details, we very often find among the Brahmaeidae unsymmetrical specimens 

 in which one side bears sometimes one stripe more than the other, sometimes has the dots differently placed. 

 Among a considerable number of otherwise very well developed B. japonica before me there is not one specimen 

 the two sides of which agree in every detail. 



The position of Brahmaea in classification has only changed in that it was sometimes placed among 

 the Saturniids, sometimes among the Bombycids. The larvae, as far as they are known, when full-grown resemble 

 huge larvae of silk-moths, but differ greatly from the latter in the early stages, which shows that there is no 

 close relationship. It will be absolutely necessary to keep the genus Brahmaea separate as a distinct family, 

 and it is very note^vorthy that a similar phenomenon exists in America, a very homogeneus family in many 

 respects resembling Brahmaea also standing alone nearly without transitions and playing the same part in the 

 fauna of the New World as Brahmaea in the Old World. These are the Ceratocampids, the largest species of 

 which is produced from that grotesque and strange catei-pillar with its curved horns on the thorax which we 

 figure on the cover of each part of this work in a defensive attitude and which perhaps those who are not fami- 

 liar with the American fauna may have considered a product of the imagination *). 



The Brahmaeids are confined to the Old World and are so distributed that three species occur in the 

 Palearctic Region, but not in Europe, just as many forms are Indian, and the same number belong to the Ethi- 

 opian fauna. They do not go far north and inhabit mountainous countries, have only one brood in the tem- 

 perate zone, and as larvae are fairly polyphagous. The larvae grow slowly and pupate in the ground without 

 a cocoon; the moths fly at night, and rest by day on tree-trunks and branches, where, with their wings in 

 steep roof-shape and folded close together, they resemble fruits or pieces of bark. The moths are rather rarely 

 seen, but the larvae are common wherever they occur, and lately large quantities of material for breeding have 

 been imported. 



The characters of the family are those of the smgle genus Brahmaea. 



1. Genus : BraliiuaeaM^'^^A;. 



Large brown moths with very characteristic markings. Head rather small, frons moderately broad, 

 eyes large, palpi short, obliquely porrect, not reaching the frons, tongue short and functionless ; antennae of 

 both sexes bipectinate with rather short branches. Thoi'ax broad and stout, strongly convex, with long thin 

 hair. Legs of medium length and strong, moderately hairy, middle tibia with one, hind tibia with two pairs 

 of spurs. Abdomen conical, smoothly and densely hairy. Both wings rounded, with entire edge, obtuse, with 

 evenly curved margins, more hairy than scaled, esj^ecially in the basal area. Veins strong, the basal portion 

 of the subcostal beneath takes the shape of a strong ridge ; between it and the median vein a deep longitudinal 

 groove. Frenulum absent. Gall of both wings closed, discocellular of forewing slightly angled, that of the hind- 

 wing more strongly so. Cells short, that of the hindwing very short, with a fold. The larvae, when young, 

 with long horns decreasing in length when the larva grows older, otherwise naked, soft, long and not strong; 

 on deciduous trees. 



B. certhia F. (= undidata Brem. d: Grey, petiveri BiUl.) (35 c). Nut-brown to earth-brown, the median certhia. 

 band of forewing strongly constricted between the median branches, in the band itself few or no dots and rings. 

 The light central line which on the hindwing separates the black basal portion from the wavj' marginal area, 

 is in its costal portion strongly wavy and then proximally convexly produced; in Amurland, North and Central 

 China. — carpenter! Butl. is the often somewhat smaller form from Corea, which is not shai^ply separated. — carpentcri. 

 Menetries figures a unicolorous specimen as lunulata Brem. d- Grey, such as may occur everj'Avhere among 

 typical specimens. Especially the median band of the forewing is not light at the inner side, but edged by pale 

 nut-brown waves and is therefore less prominent. — ledereri Rogenh. (35 c) is the considerably smaller form kdereri. 

 from Cilicia, in which the median band of the forewing is considerably constricted even above the lower median 

 branch, being sometimes interrupted, and in which this band contrasts sharply and darkly on account of the 

 bright whitish waves before and beyond it. The entire colouring of ledereri is usually also lighter. — Larva 



*) We must, however, add that this caterpillar rests always with the lja<!k. downward, i. e. hangs on a branch, being 

 represented on the cover in an upright jiosition only for artistic reasons. 



