The Crackling Moth. 



By H. N. Eidlet. 



It is not unfrequent when passing along xoads through 

 woods, just after dusk has set in to hear all around a strange 

 crackling sound not very loud but quite distinct and resemb- 

 ling somewhat Chinese crackers heard at a distance. This is 

 produced by a black moth of some size, which seems to be 

 hardly distinct from Nyctipao hicroglypliica as figured in 

 Hampson's moths of India, and Moore's Lepidoptera of 

 Ce}don. I do not find any mention of the peculiar behaviour 

 of this insect made anywhere in these works, so I will give 

 some account of it. The moth is three and a half inches 

 across the wings, which are rather longshaped and scolloped 

 along the edges, wings and body are of a deep brown black, 

 above and below and on the upper wing near the tip is a 

 yellow mark something like an 8 but with the loops more ob- 

 long and angled and the neck more distinct. In the centre 

 of the upper wing is a faint shadowy eye formed of two rings 

 of black one inside the other, the centre of a slightly paler 

 brown colour than the rest of the wing. On the underside 

 the yellow spot is seen but not so bright in colour, the pea- 

 cock's eye is invisible and there is another small yellow spot 

 lower down on the upper wing. The body is cylindric black, 

 and the antennae are wiry and black. The insect differs 

 from the figure of the Ceylon form, in Moore's Lepidoptera of 

 Ceylon, in its darker colour and very indistinct eye, which in 

 the Ceylon form has some chestnut red in the centre, (Argiua 

 liieroglyphica PL 165) but it is perhaps a local form. The 

 insect above described is a male. The females have a white 

 spot on the upper wing. 



During the da}', the moth hides under rootsor in crevices 

 of rock where it is quite dark, as do most species df the genus, 

 and if disturbed dashes off to seek another hiding place. I 



Jour. Straits Branch, R. A, Soc, No. 50, IS08. 



