238 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



wavy surface, an oblique bnnd passes behind the shoulders, a narrower one, intersected 

 by another running outwards towards the tip, is placed beyond the middle, and a 

 streak of the sama color runs lengthwise in front of the middle. A few short lines of 

 pale-brown are sometimes also present on the veins which enclose the narrow areoles 

 of the tip. The veins of the wings are also distinctly brown. It is very variable in 

 the pattern of marking, and also in color. Occasionally a specimen occurs with a 

 deficiency of the white powdery coating, and is then usually of a pale brown, or ochre- 

 yellow color, distinctly marked with broader brown stripes. Full-sized specimens 

 measure nearly an inch and a quarter across the outspread wing-covers. The Madagas- 

 car species are larger, but of the same form and general appearance as the preceding. 

 The former are found somewhat common upon the young guava and other trees of 

 the plantations in Cuba and San Domingo. 



Immediately next to these comes the genus Dascalia, which is also a "West Indian 

 form, but common to all the Antilles, Mexico, Georgia, and Florida. D. pimctata is 

 nearly of the same form as the foregoing species, but is not quite so broad, lacks the 

 wavy surface of the wing-covers, and has a shorter head. Its color is a sober gray, 

 sometimes tinged with olive, with dark brown spots on the disk, the principal veins 

 fuscous, some freckles on the base of the thin margin, and a series of dark, minute 

 points directly next the apical edge. The body, legs, face, and rostrum arc yellow or 

 ochreous, while the front margin of the mesothorax and apex of the head are dark 

 brown. It usually measures nine-tenths of an inch across the expanded whig-covers, 

 but the males are somewhat snialler. Specimens from Georgia are often of much less 

 size than those from Florida and the West Indies. In San Domingo and Cuba it 

 attains the largest size, and often abounds upon the branches of young logwood trees 

 during April and May. Other species are found in Mexico, Central America, and 

 South America ; but none liave thus far been reported from the eastern continent. 



Another form, tapering towards the end of the wing-covers, but closely related to 

 the preceding, is Cyarda. The species of this genus are usualh' pale brown or yellow, 

 inscribed and clouded with dark brown. Their face is about as broad as long, slant- 

 ing upwards, carinated each side, and separated from the epistomaby a deep transverse 

 suture, The vertex is short, has a thick margin in front, raised sides, and a short carina 

 on the middle. Behind this the prothorax has a recurved front margin, with a groove 

 in the middle and a raised process each side of it, and the mesothorax has a moderately 

 distinct carina each side of its depressed disk. A most striking feature of these insects 

 appears in the curved and inflated base of the wing-covers, from which the corium is 

 continued back long, narrow, and almost parallel-sided. Here also the clavus is broadly 

 dilated into an arc, and set with three lines of distinct tubercles. One species is very 

 common in Florida; a larger one abounds upon guava bushes and small acacia-trees in 

 Cuba and San Domingo, and others inhabit Mexico, Central America, and Brazil. 



Only one more form can now be mentioned ; although this group contains very 



many other curious and interesting representatives. In this 



genus, Poeciloptera, our attention is directed to a set of large 



and conspicuous forms, gay and attractive in color or markings, 



and remarkable for the phalaenid pattern of their ample wing- 



FiG. m. — Poeciloptera covers. Perhaps the best-known of these is the P. phaloBnoides. 



It is pale yellow, the wings, and ends of the wing-covers white, 



and the latter closely marked with series of black dots at base, especially near the inner 



and outer margins. 



