120 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



postice supra nigris basi rubris. M. L. U. Habitat in India. Magnitudo Asili ; 

 alae inferiores liueis 6 obliquis parallelis carneis. 



The form in which the oblique band is unicolorous with the rest 

 of the wing-area, and only marked out by the transverse lines, we 

 would call ab. unicolor, n. ab. The only aberration that seems to 

 have been described is the following : 



a. ab. augustii, Trim., " Actes Soc. Linn. Bord.," xxii., p. 24 (1859). — 

 Entirely black, same markings as type. Captured in 1855 by M. Auguste 01 

 Bordeaux. 



Comparison of H. osiris and H. celerio. — H. osiris comes 

 very near H. celerio, but the markings of the forewings are less 

 silvery, the marginal band of the hindwings is twice as broad, 

 the black basal markings are less distinct, the nervures on hind- 

 wings not lined with black; the body similar, but the principal 

 stripes are pinkish, and there are two interrupted black bands 

 on the first segments of the abdomen. Universally diffused in 

 Africa; once reported from Cadiz (Kirby, E.M.M., i., p. 211). 

 H. osiris is larger than H. celerio, from '125m. — *2in., in both sexes. 

 The head and eyes also are more prominent. The wings are more 

 ample ; there is usually a pink suffusion over the whole of forewing ; 

 the band is considerably straighter, and there is a strong indica- 

 tion of a second parallel oblique band midway between costa and 

 first band. In the hindwings the black scaling on the nervures of 

 H. celerio is absent, so that the pink is more prominent. The 

 abdomen is stouter, is at once distinguished by having only a 

 single subdorsal row of elongated silvery spots, the line effect much 

 more pronounced than in H. celerio (Kaye). 



Egglaying. — The eggs are green in colour at first, laid singly 

 on the upper or lower side of the leaves of the foodplant, the oval 

 period, at Tangier, lasting about 9 days (Meade- Waldo). In Queens- 

 land, oviposition continues through the winter — May to July — 

 although the shade temperature rarely falls below 7o°F. (Dodd). 



Ovum. — Pyriform, of a light pea -green colour, becoming 

 clayey-yellow just before the emergence of the larva. Duration 

 of egg stage 15 days. The eggs were laid at the end of September, 

 1885 (Milliere). The egg is rather citron-shaped than pear-shaped, 

 smooth, pale green, becoming yellow before the larva emerges 

 ^Bartel). 



Habits of larva. — Swinton records " the young, black, horned 

 larvae as being found at Jerusalem in the cobwebby corners of the 

 vineyards where the vine leaves were drilled by the larvae of 

 Ino ampelophaga ; they then developed the peacock eyes, became 

 pupae and produced imagines in the autumn." Bell notes that, "in 

 the autumn of 1885, a virginia-creeper on his house in the Bilbao district 

 of northern Spain swarmed with the larva? ; they were of all sizes 

 from half an inch to fullgrown, and six dozen were collected and 

 fed, the smallest not pupating until well into November, although the 

 earliest pupa produced an imago without artificial heat in Sep- 

 tember ; the other pupae were exposed to a day temperature of 

 about 75° F. and a night temperature of about 6o° F., with the 

 result that the imagines all emerged the same year, the last on 

 Christmas day." A larva was obtained at Firle, near Lewes, on 

 September 23rd, 1885, as large as a fullfed larva of Sphinx t 'igitsiri, 



