Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/91

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AGARISTA PICTA.
83

the line of demarcation. Mr. Westwood has not hesitated to include Agarista in the family of the Uraniidæ, and completely to disjoin the latter from the Rhopalocera (or Lepidoptera with club-shaped antennæ, including all the true butterflies) by the interposition of the Sphingidæ. It is impossible, however, to look at one of the brightly coloured day-flying Uraniidæ, without at once recognising a much closer affinity to the true butterflies than is presented by any of the sphingideous species; and whatever distribution may be ultimately adopted, it seems indispensable that the Uraniidæ should immediately succeed the Rhopalocera.



AGARISTA PICTA.

PLATE II. Fig. 1.

Leach, Zool. Miscellany, vol. i. pl. 15; God. Ency. Meth. vol. ix. p. 803; Boisduv. Voy. de l'Astrolobe, p. 172.—Pap. Agricola, Donovan's Insects of New Holland.

According to his arrangement, Latreille justly regarded the genus Agarista as one of the most characteristic of the group which he named Hesperi-sphinges, as intermediate between the Hespereidan butterflies and the sphinxes properly so called. The antennæ of the hesperi-sphinges are simple, thick-