84 
AGARISTA P1CTA. 
ened towards the extremity, at which they again be- 
come slender and have the point recurved ; but the 
latter is never furnished with a pencil of hairs. The 
spiral tongue is long and conspicuous ; the palpi are 
also developed, and consist of three joints. In Aga- 
rista these joints are elongated, the second very 
much compressed, the terminal one slender and 
nearly naked. The fore tibiae are provided with 
spurs. 
The Agarista! fly by day, and are similar in their 
habits to the hawk-moths ; they do not, however, 
possess the same power of sustained and vigorous 
flight as the latter. Their metropolis is New Hol- 
land, although individual species occur elsewhere ; 
A. octomaculata , for example, is a native of South 
America. * Lewin has made us acquainted with the 
metamorphoses of one of the species, viz. A. Glt/cince, 
which he figures and describes in his Lepidoptera of 
New South "Wales (pi. 1), under the name of Pha- 
lasnoides Glt/cince. The caterpillar has no resem- 
blance to that of a hawk-moth, but is cylindrical 
and hairy, the anal segment with an indistinct tuber- 
cular elevation on the back. It does not confine 
itself for food to any one family of plants. Before 
changing to a pupa, it spun a slight web on the 
under side of a branch, in the month of January, 
in which the chrysalis remained for seventy-five 
days, the winged insect emerging in April. 
* We are acquainted with this species only from a descrip- 
tion in the Ency. Meth. It may possibly turn out not to be a 
true Agarista. 
