296 Zoological Society. 



character, also hitherto unemployed, which will I think prove of im- 

 portance in determining the minor groups of Saturnia, consists of the 

 difference in the number of branches in the antennae of the different 

 species ; this I have carefully noticed in the following descriptions, as 

 well as the differences in the formation of the female antennae, in which 

 sex some of the species possess those organs almost filiform, whilst in 

 others they are nearly as strongly pennated as in the males. 



In the following pages thirty-three African species are introduced, 

 of which seventeen are now for the first time described. 



For convenience the following artificial mode of division is em- 

 ployed in their arrangement : — 



A. Fore- wings very sickle-shaped ; with a small eye-like spot near 



the tip. 



a. All the wings with a glassy lunate central spot. Sp. 1. 



b. Fore-wings with a central bean-shaped vitreous spot ; hind- 

 wings with large oval one. Sp. 2. 



B. Fore-wings less strongly sickle-shaped or rounded externally ; all 



the wings with an eye-like spot. 



a. Hind- wings not tailed. Sp. 3-10. 



b. Hind-wings tailed. Sp. 11, 12. 



C. Fore-wings with a small triangular or quadrate vitreous central 



spot; hind-wings with a large eye. Sp. 13-24. 



D. Wings without eyes or vitreous spots. Sp. 25-28. 

 £. Aberrant species. Sp. 29-33. 



Section A. 

 Subsection a. 



Sp. 1. Saturnia Vacuna, Westw. S . alis maris falcatis fusds, 

 fascia communi media alba, omnibus lunula magna media vitreOy 

 utrinque albo jlavoque marginata ; anticisque macula ovali 

 nigra subapicali (albo supra circumdata). 



Expans. alar. <^unc. 6^; ? unc. 5|. 



Inhabits Ashantee. In the British Museum. 



The male has the fore-wings considerably falcate at the tips, and 

 the hind ones almost triangular. The female has the fore-wings 

 somewhat emarginate in the middle of the hind margin, and the 

 hind-wings less elongated. The general colour of the mngs is brown, 

 thickly irrorated, especially in the males, with white. The fore- 

 wings have a broad suboblique bar, extending from the base of the 

 inner margin and directed forwards in a right angle immediately in 

 front of the central lunule, the margin of which is formed of a nar- 

 row brown bar, within w hich it is dirty yellow, internally edged with 

 white, the central part being vitreous. This is followed by a white 

 oblique nearly straight bar, the brown space beyond which is much- 

 powdered with white ; the apical margin is pale livid buff, traversed 

 by a very slender undulating brown line, with a black oval dot near 

 the apex, which is powdered at its base with white ; the apex of 

 the wings being rosy fulvous, separated from the livid brown ante- 

 cedent part of the wing by a very much-angulated white line. 



The hind-wings are white at the base, which extends on the out- 



