107
HEPIALUS LIGNIVORUS.
PLATE VIII. Figs. 1, 2, 3.
Examples have been already given of British Hepiali,[1] with some account of their general habits. The foreign species are pretty numerous, and some of them remarkable for their size. This is the case in particular with H. crassus (Drury's Exot. Ins., vol. iii. pl. 2, fig. 1), a native of Sierra Leone, which measures upwards of half a foot between the tips of the wings. They are in general of very plain colours, but the species figured on the plate above referred to is a striking exception in this respect. It is in fact a highly ornamental insect, the fore wings being of a brilliant yellowish-green, divided into two patches by a waved band of a faint ferruginous colour, intersected by dusky, and several acute points of scarlet; there are some short marks of the same colour on the anterior edge. The posterior wings are reddish flesh-colour, tinged with blue at the base, the abdominal margin with a black stripe.
- ↑ Nat. Lib. Ent., vol. iv. p. 179.
