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The Philippine Journal of Science 
1921 
number of otherwise very well developed B. japonica before me there is 
not one specimen the two sides of which agree in every detail. 
The position of Brahmaea in classification has only changed in that 
it was sometimes placed among the Saturniids, sometimes among the Bom- 
bycids. The larvae as far as they are known, when full-grown resemble 
huge larvae of silk-moths but differ greatly from the latter in the early 
stages, which shows that there is no close relationship. It will bd absolutely 
necessary to keep the genus Brahmaea separate as a distinct family, and 
it is very noteworthy that a similar phenomenon exists in America, a very 
homogeneous family in many respects resembling Brahmaea also stand- 
ing alone nearly without transitions and playing the same part in the 
fauna of the New World as Brahmaea in the Old World. These are 
the Ceratocampids, the largest species of which is produced from that 
grotesque and strange caterpillar, with its curved horns on the thorax 
which we figure on the cover of each part of this work in a defensive 
attitude and which perhaps those who are not familiar with the Amer- 
ican fauna may have considered a product of the imagination. 
The Brahmaeids are confined to the Old World and are so distributed 
that three species occur in the Palearctic Region, but not in Europe, 
just as many forms are Indian, and the same number belong to the 
Ethiopian fauna. They do not go far north and inhabit mountainous 
countries, have only one brood in the temperate zone, and as larvae are 
fairly polyphagous. The larvae grow slowly and pupate in the ground 
without a cocoon; the moths fly at night, and rest by day on tree-trunks 
and branches, where, with their wings in steep roof-shape and folded close 
together, they resemble fruits or pieces of bark. The moths are rather 
rarely seen, but the larvae are common wherever they occur, and lately 
large quantities of material for breeding have been imported. 
The characters of the family are those of the single genus Brahmaea. 
* * * the larvae, when young, with long horns decreasing in length 
when the larva grows older, otherwise naked, soft, long and not strong; 
on deciduous trees. 
The larva figured (Plate 2, fig. 11) was taken in August, 1902 
(figured, August 2), at Hakodate, Oshima Province, Hokkaido 
(Yezo), on ibotanoki ( Ligustrum ibota Siebold), but died with- 
out reaching the pupal stage. It is so well known amongst 
Japanese collectors that, although I have never succeeded in 
breeding the imago, I have no hesitation in referring the larva 
figured to Brahmsea japonica. Pryer 30 moreover comments on 
the larva as follows: 
Feeds on the privet; larva is smooth, bright green, marked with black, 
and has four thin black filaments over IS inches long on the foresegments 
and three on anterior [posterior]. Imago appears in March and April. 
Pryer, however, speaks of the larva previous to the fifth molt 
when it loses all these filaments. My figure represents the larva 
in the fourth ? stage. 
80 Trans. Asiat. Soc. Japan 12 (1885) 53. 
