Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/192

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154

SATURNIA MAIA.

PLATE XVI. Fig. 1.

Phal. (Bombyx) Maia, Drury's Exot. Ins.; Cramer, Pap. Exot., pl. 98, fig. A.—Bombyx Proserpina, Fabr. Abbot and Smith's Lepid. Georg., pl. 50; Encyc. Meth.

This species is of comparatively small size, but it is rendered very conspicuous by the strongly defined character of its colours. It seldom expands much beyond two inches and a half; head and antennæ black, the latter strongly pectinated. Wings thin and filmy, nearly transparent, black, with a broad white bar running across the centre; the anterior pair having a half-formed eye on the inner side of the white bar, and the posterior an angular black spot on the white bar, before the middle. Thorax light grey anteriorly, the other parts black; abdomen likewise black, the extremity orange. On the under side the abdomen is grey, with white spots at the side, extremity orange. Legs black, thighs orange.

The caterpillar (Plate XVI. fig. 2) frequents the red oak (Quercus rubra, Linn.), as well as other American species of Quercus. They vary much in colour, according to age. That figured on the plate