200
ALARIA GAURÆ.
PLATE XXIV. Fig. 4.
Phal. Gauræ, Abbot and Smith, Lepid. Geog., pl. 99.
This delicately tinted moth has some relation to the preceding, but seemingly not so close as to warrant its being included under the same generic appellation. The ground colour is white, the wings tinted with red, that colour deepening at the exterior margin of the upper pair, and forming a transverse band beyond the middle not reaching to the hinder extremity; thorax crested, inclining to yellow.
The caterpillar (fig. 5) is rather long and slender, having sixteen feet; the under side of the body and legs white, the rest yellow, each segment with a transverse black band in the middle; head ferruginous. It feeds on the Gaura biennis. When the moth settles on the blossoms of that plant, there is such a similarity between its colours and those of the flowers, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them at a small distance.
