64 -V YEAR OF COST J RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



ent shades of gray in zigzag lines above, dark purples with 

 pale spots below. It was Thysayiia agrippina, the largest 

 known species of the Noctuse, recorded from Mexico to 

 Brazil in the Biologia Centrali- Americana. 



A striking-looking moth which came to the electric lights 

 on May 13 and June 16 was Manidia lu7ius, having a wing- 

 spread of about 33^2 inches, the wings on their upper surface 

 of different shades of brown crossed by nearly twenty wavy 

 lines of white or yellow, the hind wings with "tails" ^ inch 

 long bordered by three black "eye-spots" with blue "pupils." 

 In daylight, resting in the corners of rooms in the hotel, 

 were often seen large moths whose wings were of different 

 tints and shades of brown and purplish-brown, crossed by 

 many wavy lines of lighter and darker colors. They were 

 attracted by the electric lights both out-of-doors and indoors. 

 Some of these were Erebus odora, stray specimens of which 

 are frequently observed far north in the United States; it 

 reaches a wing-spread of six inches or more and has on the 

 front wing, not quite halfway out from the base, a comma- 

 shaped mark }4 inch high, in black and blue margined with 

 a buff line. Another and similarly colored was a Letis, a 

 smaller insect (wing-spread 4 inches) with a patch of orange 

 hairs along the fore edge of the upper surface of the hind 

 wings. 



On the morning of May 18, while out in the street near 

 our hotel, we saw a bright yellow-breasted bird seize a 

 sphinx moth which was resting on the ground, fly with it to 

 an electric light wire and alighting there feed upon the moth, 

 subsequently letting it fall. The moth {Pachylia resumens) 

 had more than the posterior half of its abdomen eaten, but 

 its legs and wings still fluttered when stimulated. The bird 

 in the meantime found another sphinx moth and flew off 

 with it. These moths were resting near an electric street 

 light fixture to which they probably had been attracted the 



