i6 LEPIDOPTERA. 



1. A. Atropos, L. — Expanse, 44 to 5 inches. Ex- 

 tremely stout, fore wings blackish-grey mottled with yellow 

 and red ; hind wings yellow, barred with black ; a death's- 

 head on the back of the thorax. 



Antennas rather short, straight, stout, and hardly tapering, 

 but having a bent hairy jointed bristle at the apex ; colour 

 black, except that the upper side is white towards the tip ; 

 pectinated with short broad tufts of bristles in the male. 

 Thorax and abdomen very broad and thick ; head large, 

 rounded in front, with large, thick, heavily scaled palpi, 

 between which is coiled the short, thick proboscis or tongue. 

 Head and the front and sides of the thorax blackish-grey, 

 with a bluish gloss ; upper portion of the thorax blackish- 

 brown, with a large well-defined yellowish blotch, containing 

 two round black spots and some dark grey clouds, so arranged 

 as to produce a striking resemblance to the face of a human 

 skull. Abdomen not tapering, densely scaled, deep yellow, 

 with a cross-bar of black along the edge of each segment, 

 and a broad bluish-black stripe down the middle, broadest at 

 the anal segment. Fore wiugs very thick and strong, with 

 the costal and hind margins gently and regularly rounded ; 

 apex pointed, but not acutely so ; dorsal margin straight. 

 Hind wings rather broad, with the apex sharply rounded or 

 almost angulated ; hind margin in part rounded, but hollowed 

 before the anal angle, which is broad, with the dorsal margin 

 much rounded towards the abdomen. Fore wings deep dark 

 bluish-grey, mottled with reddish-brown and yellow ; at a 

 short distance from the base is an indented, double, trans- 

 verse yellowish-white stripe, edged, within and without, with 

 black ; beyond this is a black indented transverse line before 

 the middle of the wing, a second much more curved and in- 

 dented beyond the middle, and a third, scalloped and indented, 

 lying much nearer to the hind margin ; in the middle of the 

 wing at the end of the discal cell is a white spot ringed with 

 black ; and between this and the following transverse line 



