12 



Fam. BOMBYX. Sec. CRYPTOPHASA. 



Cryptophasa Albacosta. PI. 11. 



SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION. 



Eombyx Cryptophasa with silvery gray anterior wings, the shoulder, thorax, and a broad margin 

 on the anterior edge, of a silvery white; a row of angular hazel coloured marks on the end, 

 with a faint ear-like mark, and a dusky dot in the middle of the wing. From the shoulders 

 runs an oblique cloud of chocolate dots or little tufts. Posterior wings brown, with a broad 

 silvery white margin and fringe. 



This beautiful Bombyx is an inhabitant of the Banksia Serrata, and is a pro- 

 vident insect in the larva state, like the foregoing. Our specimen had formed 

 a deep cylindrical cell in a large stem of the above-mentioned tree, at the 

 setting off of a branch, where it had bored into the main wood; sallying out 

 only by night, and bringing to its dwelling whole leaves of the broad foliage 

 of this tree, Avith dexterity and great labour, exhibiting many marks of saga- 

 city in its progress, and when it arrived at the entrance of its retreat, it raised 

 up the covering with its hinder parts, and slipped down its cell backwards, 

 dragging the leaf after it, the extreme end of the stalk ol" which it held art- 

 fully in its jaws, and did not quit it till it was safely and almost wholly within 

 its cell, where it fastened it down, together with the covering of the entrance 

 by a web. On leaves thus provided the larva feeds at leisure and in secu- 

 rity. It changes to pupa within this cell or dwelling in January, making no 

 web, remains thus thirty clays, and is on the wing in February, when it fre- 

 quents the tops of lofty trees. The male is shewn at 3; the female at 4; the 

 larva at 1; the pupa in a section of its cell at 2; and the covering over the 

 entrance at 5. where the larva is seen just going forth from its dwelling. 



