PLATE CCCCLXIX. S 



For believing it muft have been originally imported in the egg, or larva 

 ftate, among fome articles of American produce, though from this in- 

 troduaion it is not to be denied that the fpecies may have become 

 naturalized in this country. There does not appear any evidence fo 

 pofitive as to demonftrate the fact, yet we fufpecl: this infea, as a 

 fuppofed variety of Sphinx Convolvuli, muft have been Jong known 

 among colle&ors as a native of Britain, under the denomination of 

 the " Red Underwing Convolvuli ;" and, if we miitake not, under that 

 of the " Yorkfhire Convolvuli" alfo. We believe thefe names have 

 been applied to the prefent infea. 



The fimilarity that prevails in the general appearance of this infecl, 

 and the Sphinx Convolvuli, deferves particularly to be confidered, in 

 order to determine whether the latter be really a diftina fpecies, or 

 only a variety. 



In the firft place, it is to be obferved, that the defcriptions which 

 Linnaeus, and other early writers, afford us, are taken from fpeci- 

 mens of the Sphinx Convolvuli met with exclufively in Europe : thofe 

 writers did not confider the {pedes as extra European, much lefs as a 

 native of the tranfatlantic regions, and their defcriptions will be found 

 to accord with that particular kind of Sphinx which is known in Eng- 

 land by the name of Convolvuli, or Bind-Weed Hawk Moth. 



Some time after the work of Linnaeus appeared, our countryman 

 Drury published the firft volume of his exotic infe&s, the twenty- 

 fourth plate of which includes the figure of a Sphinx, whofe external 

 afpecl; feemed, in his opinion, to correfpond with the European Con- 

 volvuli : the hues and marking of the upper wings were fomewhat 

 fimilar, but in this the colour of the lower wings, which in the Euro- 

 pean infect are greyifh white, were red, a difference which the author 

 of that work imagined might be produced from the effect of climate, 

 the fpecimen being from St. Chriftopher's ; and under this perfuafion, 

 after fpeaking of it as an infeft which he eould not find defcribed, he 

 calls it in his index Sphinx Convolvuli varktas. 



b 2 This 



