AGARISTIDAE; COPIDRYAS. By Dr. M. Drattdt. 
3 
1. Family: Agaristidae. 
The Agaristids we have limited also in this volume in the same sense and taken up to the same extent 
as in volume 3, 11 and 15, therefore a little more extensively than has been done by Hampson with his Aga¬ 
ristidae proper, and we have included therein the Indo-Australian Seudyra and the kindred homologous genera 
Gerra, Gerrodes with their allied genera, which are already put forth from the great tribe of Acronyctinae in 
Hampson’s conception, who has classified them there. So as not to disarrange the homogeneousness of the 
work we thought fit to assign a wider scope to the family which, as stated in the earlier volumes, can 
only claim the value of a subfamily which Strand wants to attribute to it of late. We cannot coincide with his 
elucidations, nor can they bear a scientifically strict comment, such as the Agaristidae can. The latter, if one 
is allowed to say so, have more or less become an habitual group in the circle of the forms of Noctuidae 
composed of diurnal and in most cases variegated animals with a tinge of the Arctiidae, mostly distally thickened 
antennae and slighter bodies than is commonly attributed to the Noctuids. If the group is taken like this, 
it will allow itself to be proportionally sharply circumscribed. But if we make concessions to transition forms, 
the entire character of the group is lost as is to be seen in Strand’s catalogue, and a whole series of genera, 
which are surely neither biologically nor systematically allied to them, are torn out of their better suitable 
association. Nobody will satisfactorily assent to recognize Agaristidae in the green Agriopodes, the little Acro¬ 
nyctinae resembling the Nonagria so closely, or the American Erastria- like small Noctuids. Thus a jumble 
of little uniform shape is made up with still less common peculiarities, which would permit to segregate them 
from the Noctuae. 
As already mentioned in the General Introduction to this volume, the American Agaristidae differ 
materially from their most dazzingly variegated allies of the Ancient World and Australia by usually more dull, 
brown or black tones. Bluish silvery metal scales are to be found almost everywhere and frequently yellow 
hindwings margined with black are the only colourings on the insect. Biologically very little is known. Some 
species are evidently a modification of the Pericopids or of the innumerable black and yellow Geometrids of 
South America. They mostly seem easily to be scared up in day-time not to be lovers of the sunlight. Nearly all 
species, however, are caught at night on the wing under the lamp. 
Of the larvae only a few of the smaller North American Alypia- species are known. They are naked 
with a somewhat raised 11th ring and a few sparse hairs on little warts; head and anal shield mostly rucldy- 
yellow. The pupation takes place in the glutinous earthen housing. As food-plant the vine also ranks foremost 
in America. 
1. Genus: Copiclryas Grt. 
The chief (characteristic mark of this genus consists in a large, flat, tridented, above hollowed, horny 
projection of the frons, surmounting somewhat the rough-haired, porrect palpi; the scarcely thickened antennae 
are plain. The tibiae show a cover of long hair, no spines. Tire dorsum of the first abdominal ring exhibits a 
hair-tuft. The neuration is rather uniform in all these genera and shows few differences: the upper median 
and the two lower radial veins of the forewing rise rather close together from the lower cell-angle, the upper 
radial vein from the upper cell-angle; an accessory cell is present. On the hindwing the middle radial vein is 
feebly developed and comes from the middle of the transverse vein. In all the genera taken into consideration 
the costal vein of the hindwing rises separately, but close behind the base it is united with the subcostal, in 
order to leave it again immediately and to terminate into the costal margin. 
C. gloveri Gr. d? R. (1 a) is a brown insect with a broad, white longitudinal band filling up the cell glover 
and terminating obliquely upwards before the apex into the costal margin, the two cell-maculae being surrounded 
by dark in the brownish costal margin. Hindwing yellow with a black marginal band and white fringes. Abdomen 
