OCR Text |
Show 388 MR. A. G. BUTLER ON NEW LEPIDOPTERA. [Apr. 2, with more acuminate primaries; above bright stramineous, the external area densely irrorated with red-brown scales, but leaving clear yellow patches or spots behind a submarginal series of small black spots, which are partly united by a zigzag dusky line; a straight dark brown stripe from the apex of primaries to the middle of the abdominal margin of secondaries ; a very irregular dark brown line across the basal area; a small tricolonred ocellus (white, black, and yellow) with hyaline centre in the middle of each wing; primaries with the basal half of costal border lilacine grey, a broad dark brown longitudinal belt from the base to the straight oblique discal stripe, an irregular dentate-sinuate brown line from the costa to the inner margin just beyond the ocellus, a curved dark brown streak from the costa to the oblique stripe, two grey-edged apical white spots ; secondaries with a regular dentate-sinuate brown line just beyond the ocellus; head, collar, and tegulae grey ; palpi and prothorax plum-coloured : wings below altogether paler than above, the markings less defined, the dark longitudinal belt of primaries obsolete ; body below pale yellow, the anterior tibiae and tarsi plum-coloured. Expanse 3 inches 8 lines. Ambriz (Monteiro). W e also have what seems to be a faded example of this species from Lake Nyassa; the latter, however, differs somewhat in marking, and may prove to be locally constant. ATTACUS, Linnaeus. 20. A T T A C U S P R Y E R I , n. sp. Allied to A. walkeri of Felder from N . China, but darker than any of the species of the A. cynthia group ; olive brown, with paler borders and the usual submarginal lines ; the pale belt (bounding the dark angulated central line externally) white inwardly, pinky whitish and diffused outwardly, with no defined intersecting stripe as in all the allied species; the maggot-like markings, basal white belts, and the apical markings of primaries as in A. walkeri. Expanse, d 5 inches 10 lines, $ 6 inches 2 lines. Yokohama (Jonas). This species is the most undeniably distinct of all the forms allied to A. cynthia. I name it after Mr. H. Pryer, of Yokohama. Attacus cynthia, as figured by Drury, does not agree with Felder's Chinese species, but is certainly nearest to the form occurring in Java, to which Mr. Moore has given the name of A. insularis. It may eventually prove to be distinct from the latter, from which it appears to differ in the more angulated central transverse line ; in all other characters, such as colour, the strongly dentate pale belt, and the bent form of the maggot-like marking of the primaries, it is extremely like the Javan form. |