18 LEPIDOPTEEA INDICA. 



with the vehis aud numerous spots and marks black. They fly slowly over the tops 

 of bushes and trees, often at considerable height from the ground, but when within 

 reach are not difficult to capture. They are essentially forest-loving insects, and 

 frequent the neighbourliood of pools aud streams. Locally they are known by 

 various trivial names, such as ' floater,' or ' silver paper fly,' or ' sylph,' in Ceylon, 

 ' spectre ' or 'ghost,' in South India." (Butt. Ind. i. p. 23.) 



Six species of Hestia occur within our area, the transformations of only one 

 species of this genus being at present known, that of H. Malaharica, and of which 

 we give illustrations on plates 1 and 2. The name of the food plant of this species 

 is unknown. 



HESTIA MALABARICA.— (Plate 1, fig. 1, la ; larva and pupa lb., Ic, c?, ? •) 



Hestia Malaharica, Moore, Annals and Mag. of jSTafcural History, 1877, p. 46 ; id. Proc. Zool. Soc. 



Lond., 1883, p. 220 ; Hampson, Journ. A.siat. Soc, Beng., 1888, p. 347. 

 Hesta lynceus apud Marshall and De Niceville, Butt, of India, &c., p. 25 (1888) nee Drury. 



Imago. — Male and female. Wings semi-transparent, dusky greyish white, upper 

 and underside, with the veins and their immediate borders, and all the markings 

 black. Forewing with black interspace between the margin and costal vein from the 

 base to about one-third the length of the wing, where it merges into a spot crossing 

 to the subcostal vein; beyond this is a short marginal black bar before the end of the 

 costal vein, which also merges into a lower spot and extends broadly across the 

 end of the cell ; within the cell are three black lines extending from the base to the 

 end, the upper line starting from near the base of the subcostal, the two lower lines 

 from the base of the cell, and are united for some distance at their base, crossing 

 these lines beyond the middle of the cell is a large irregular-shaped patch which 

 sometimes touches the subcostal vein, but not the median ; a medial discal transverse 

 series of seven spots, of which the three lower are the largest and cordate, the 

 others oval, the two upper being confluent and extend inwardly to tlie costa, the 

 two cordate spots between the median veins sometimes extending their upper end to 

 the vein ; a smaller rounded inner spot between the middle and lower median veins ; 

 between the base of the lower median vein and the submedian is a large outwardly 

 oblique crutch-shaped spot extending inward to the base in a decreasing streak and 

 from which outwardly a line extends through the lower discal spot to the exterior 

 marginal spot; beyond the discal series is a submargiual row of biconical spots, 

 each pair divided by a vein and continued in a broad outwardly-dilated peduncle to the 

 exterior margin on both sides of the end of each vein, except on the submedian vein 

 where the penduncle is formed only on its anterior end, the anterior biconical spots 

 being less regularly formed ; between the bases of these biconical marks is a mar- 

 ginal row of corneal spots. Hindicing with correspondingly disposed and similar 



