37 
these insects, since it is found gradually obliterated in a series of the 
species by the space being more and more clothed with scales, until, 
as in our common Saturnia, all that remains of the vitreous spot is a 
narrow lunule at the base of the pupil of the eye-like spot. Although 
Mr. Duncan’s observation, that “the species in which the fore-wings 
of the male are most decidedly falcate have this form much less 
strongly marked in the female ; where the former are not very strongly 
faleate, in the female they become subfaleate (H. Promethea may 
serve as an example), while the females of subfalcate winged males 
have the exterior outline of their fore-wings either straight or slightly 
curved outwards ’’—is correct, yet he has carried it too far in proposing 
to unite together two insects belonging to different genera, and equally 
far removed in their geographical range, namely the curious Saturnia 
Iucina of Drury (which possesses very strongly falcate fore-wings, the 
veins of which, as is evident from Drury’s figure, are arranged as in 
the typical Saturnia, and which I find recorded in Drury’s MSS. to 
be a native of Sierra Leone) and the Assamese Bombyx spectabilis*, 
described by Mr. Hope in the Linnzean Transactions (vol. xviii. part 3, 
figured in pl. 31. fig. 3. from my drawing), which possesses an out- 
wardly rounded apical margin of the fore-wings, and which, as may be 
seen from my figure, has a different arrangement of the veins of the 
fore-wings, the apical portion of the dise of which is traversed by seven 
branches, the innermost pair of the post-costal vein not being united 
together in a fork on the disc; the insect in fact belonging rather to 
the group of which Lasiocampa is a good typet. 
* This species is the Bombyx Certhia, Fabricius, Ent. Syst. iii. 412; Bombyx 
Wallichii, Gray in Zool. Mise. p. 39; and Phalena maxima, Chusan, Petiver. Gaz. 
t. 18. fig. 3. 
+ I may take this opportunity of describing a very fine new species of Lasio- 
campa from Tropical Africa, in my own collection. 
LAsIocAMPA STRIGINA, Westw. L. alis anticis pallide incarnato-albidis strigis 
quatuor fulvo-castaneis, posticis basi fuscis strigis tribus transversis albis, 
pone medium fulvo-castaneis. 
Expans. alar. unc. 6. 
Hab. Sierra Leone. In Mus, nostr. 
The general colour of this insect is a rich chestnut-fulvous or sorrel colour. The 
basal half of the fore-wings is of a pinkish buff, the pink tint being strongest at 
the base, and extending across the hind part of the thorax. Between the base 
and the distance of one-third of the length of the wing, are two straight, trans- 
verse, chestnut-fulvous strigz, which are shaded off gradually to the pale ground 
colour of the wing; at the distance of one-third is another abbreviated striga of 
the same kind (indicating the situation where the discoidal cell is closed). Across 
the middle of the wing is a broad, more oblique chestnut-fulvous bar, shaded off 
in the same manner; and beyond this, and parallel with it, is another narrow, 
darker chestnut-fulvous, oblique striga, leaving a broad apical margin of chestnut- 
fulvous, slightly clouded with an obscure paler wave. The principal veins of the 
wing are indicated at a little distance beyond the middle by a double row of 
minute chestnut dots, and along the apical portion by a brighter tint. The fringe 
is claret-brown. The hind-wings are blackish-brown at the base, with three 
transverse white fascix, the outer ones being close together, and running nearly 
across the middle of the wing; the apical half of the wing being chestnut-fulvous, 
with a slight indication of a paler fascia. The antennz are very pale buff and 
bipectinated; the tips are broken off in my specimen, the part remaining having 
seventy-three pairs of rays. Beneath, the wings are paler chestnut-fulvous, with 
a darker duplicated striga across the middle, and some slightly indicated waved 
strige beyond the middle. 
