Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/137

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CRYPTOTHELEA MACLEAYI.
115

metamorphosis it obviously approaches to Psyche, but the appearance of the perfect insect is very dissimilar. Guilding conjectured that it might be allied to Zeuzera; Mr. Westwood considers it as forming the connecting link between the Hepialidæ and the remainder of the Bombycidæ, and certainly, if we put out of view the metamorphosis, there can be no doubt about its affinity to the former.



CRYPTOTHELEA[1] MACLEAYI.

PLATE IX. Fig. 6.

Lansdown Guilding, in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 371.

Mr. Guilding has described this species in the same paper as the last, and under the same generic name. But the slightest examination of his beautiful figures at once shews that the characters he assumes as specific possess a generic value. Nay, in an artificial arrangement, the two genera must be widely removed from each other; for while Oiketicus, in the perfect form, shows an obvious affinity to the Hepialidæ, the moth in question makes a near approach to Psyche. Although we notice it,

  1. Κρυπτος concealed, and θηλεα, female.