520 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



LEPIDOPTEEA: PeODEYAS (-/5C0, dpoaq). 



A stout-bodied, strong-wiuged genus of Prcefecti. Eyes moderately 

 large. Antennse remarkably short, scarcely longer tliaa the head and 

 thorax together, the club moderately long, obovate or subfasiform, about 

 twice as stout as the stalk, about five times as long as broad, broadly 

 and regularly rounded at the tip, and composed of eleven or twelve 

 joints of nearly equal length. Palpi extending beyond the front of the 

 head by a little more than the length of the apical joint ; the latter 

 about five times as long as broad, equal, cylindrical, broadly rounded 

 at the tip, and uniformly clothed with slender scales; the middle joint 

 appears to be moderately slender and compressed, twice as broad as the 

 apical joint. 



The thorax is stout, with the general form of the PrcBfecti^ and particu- 

 larly of the special group to which Vanessa and Hypanarlia belong. 

 The median ridge of the mesothorax has a minutely impressed line poste- 

 riorly ; the scutellum is pretty large, lozenge-shaped, slightly broader 

 than long ; the metathoracic epimera are pretty large, and taper apically 

 at the median line of the thorax to a blunt point. The legs are too im- 

 perfectly seen through the wings to give even the length of any part or 

 of the whole of any one with probability. Posterior lobe of patagia 

 about twice as long as its mean breadth, curving out.ward and tapering 

 regularly and rapidly to a somewhat produced outer apical angle. 



Fore wings nearly twice as long as broad, unusually triangular, the 

 costal margin almost exactly straight, but bent with a posterior curve 

 at the extremity, and slightly convex at the extreme base; the outer 

 margin is also nearly straight on either of its two halves, separated by 

 a slight bend at the extremity of the upper median nervule, the lower 

 half faintly convex ; the inner margin is straight, the outer angle only 

 a little rounded. The costal nervule terminates at the middle of the 

 wing. The first superior subcostal nervule originates shortly before the 

 origin of the first inferior subcostal nervule, and terminates scarcely 

 beyond the middle of the third quarter of the wing; the second superior 

 and second inferior subcostal nervules originate in the middle of the 

 wing, the latter from the first inferior branch, as far beyond its base 

 as the first superior nervule before it; the former terminates at the 

 middle of the outer half of the costal border ; the latter diverges 

 from the first inferior branch so slightly as to be nearly continuous 

 with its basal portion ; the third superior branch originates as far 

 beyond the second as the second beyond the first, and the fourth 

 midway between the third and the outer margin ; the latter is widely 

 parted from the main vein, and strikes the costal margin as far beyond 

 the obtuse but distinctly angled apex of the wing as the main branch 

 passes below it. The cell is open. The first median branch originates 

 midway between the base and the final forks, and the latter diverge 

 very slightly at base, leaving a very open and broad subcosto-median 

 interspace. 



