33 
Majesty, there was still a chance of the Aurochs again living and 
reproducing its species in Britain. ‘ 
_ Letters had also been received from M. Westerman, M. Vekemans, 
the Hon. C. A. Murray, A. N. Shaw, Esq., and H. N. Tweedie, Esq., 
Corr. Members, relative to collections already made or to be expected 
from Egypt, Bombay, and Hayti. 
The following paper was read :— 
MonoGRAPH OF THE LARGE AFRICAN SPECIES OF NOCTURNAL 
LEPIDOPTERA BELONGING OR ALLIED TO THE GENUS SATUR- 
nia. By J. O. Westwoop, F.L.S. erc. 
(Annulosa, Pl. VII. VIII. IX. X.) 
Linnzeus, in pursuance of the plan which he generally adopted, of 
placing the largest species of any group at its head, introduced as the 
first species of the Nocturnal Lepidoptera (the whole of which con- 
stituted in his System but one genus, Phalena) those gigantic moths 
of which the Phalena Atlas may be considered as the type, distin- 
guished both by himself and Fabricius by the character “alis pa- 
tulis.” Placed thus at the head of this great division, and being in 
themselves some of the most gigantic and at the same time most 
beautiful of the insect tribes,—valuable also to the human race on 
account of the product obtained from several of the species,—I have 
thought that a synopsis of the African species (a considerable number 
of which are now for the first time described and figured, and several 
of which, being inhabitants of Southern Africa, appear as likely to 
afford a supply of silk as their Indian relatives,) would not be with- 
out interest. 
So little however has hitherto been effected in the classification of 
the nocturnal exotic Lepidoptera, even of the larger species, and in 
fact so completely have the chief characters, on which a real distri- 
bution of these insects can alone be established—I allude more espe- 
cially to the arrangement of the veins of the wings and the transfor- 
mations of the insects—been neglected, that it is impossible, without 
a revision of the whole of the family Boméycide, to arrive at the most 
satisfactory plan of arrangement of a geographical selection of the 
species. It will however not be useless to notice the attempts which 
have been made relative to the arrangement of these insects. Dr. 
Boisduval, in his ‘ Genera et Index Methodicus,’ has divided the 
Heterocera into a number of tribes of equal rank, amongst which is the 
Saturnides*, characterized thus: “ Larvze obese arboricole, segmen- 
tis prominulis, modo tuberculis piligeris, modo spinis verticillatis vel 
pennatis instructz. Folliculum tenax. Alze patulze latee seepius macula 
ocellari vel diaphana ornatze : lingua nulla.”’ The tribe comprises the 
single genus Saturnia of Schranck and Ochsenheimer (d¢tacus, Ger- 
mar), with the four European species Pyri, Spini, Carpini, and Ce- 
cigena as its types. The characters given by Boisduval are suffi- 
ciently precise, but those obtained from the peculiar structure of the 
* Op. cit. p. 73. 
No. CXCII.—Procerpines or THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
