OCR Text |
Show 56 MR. R. TRIMEN ON BUTTERFLIES FROM [Jan. 16, hoary to a little beyond middle ; lobe with a narrow silvery edging interrupted by base of tail. Cilia in fore wing white from apex to lower radial nervule, below that fuscous ; in hind wing dark red with a fine basal line of fuscous. UNDERSIDE.-Deep ferruginous red, with numerous thin, silvery, dark-edged spots, arranged as in C. harpax (Fabr.), but much more attenuated, aud in hind wing forming more continuous, less macular, transverse series. Fore wing : a broad basicostal creamy border for about one-third of length of wing; a rather indistinct lilacine cloud over upper part of disk; below median nervure a conspicuous, slender, elongate fuscous-edged white marking, curved upward at its inner extremity and lying longitudinally; a similar but much longer marking, bent downward at its outer extremity, between 1st median nervule and submedian nervure : these two markings represent the much thicker, more transverse ones in harpax; inner-marginal border only narrowly and faintly pale fulvous ; apical silvery spot only of submarginal series well-marked, elongate, oblique. Hind wing: disk with a faint but extended lilacine cloud ; discal series of silvery markings forming an almost continuous irregular streak angulated inferiorly ; submarginal series of small spots very indistinct, scarcely darker than ground-colour, except at angulation immediately before anal angular lobe, where two are silvery, sub-linear, and dark-edged. Front of head, palpi, first and second pairs of legs (the first being very densely hairy almost to end of tarsus), aud under edge of third pair all of the same creamy tint as the basicostal border of the fore wings. Antenna; without white bar beneath at base of club. The distinguishing characters of this species of Chrysorychia are :-on the upperside, the extremely dark red (in some lights with a faint purpbsh gloss) of the discal patches, and the limitation of the hind-wing patch (whereas in C. amanga, and C. harpax the red extends over the whole surface except a small basal portion); and, on the underside, the very deep red ground-colour, the thinness and regularity of the silvery markings, the very peculiar elongation and whiteness of the two longitudinal streaks below the median nervure and its first nervule in the fore wings, and the creamy (not silvery-white as in C. amanga) colour of the basicostal border in the fore wings. The very dense creamy hair, like wool, clothing the first pair of legs, and the absence of the inferior white bar at the base of the antennal club, are also peculiar features of C. cruenta, although the former is, to a much smaller extent, exhibited also by C. amanga. Only two males of this handsome Chrysorychia were taken by Mr. Selous-one in the Mineni Valley on 6th March, the other at the Lopodzi Fiver on 2nd April. Genus PENTILA, Westw. 1 do not concur with Scudder (Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci. x. pp. 244 & 284, 1875), Butler (Ent. M . Mag. xxii. p. 59, Aug. |