ACHERONTIA ATROPOS.
Plate IV.—Fig. 1.
This is the largest moth found in the Canary Islands, known as the Death’s Head, very rarely met with in England.
It measures from five to six inches in expanse. The ground-colour of the fore-wings is brown, varied with zig-zag lines of whitish yellow and light brown. There is a white dot in the centre of each, and they are dusted all over with minute white dots. The hind-wings are orange, with two black marginal bands on the lower edge. The head is dark brown or black, marked with a pale-brown skull. The body is orange, with a longitudinal band of bluish grey down the centre, increasing in width towards the base. Six bands of black, broadest near the head, cross the body. The antennæ are rather short and thick, tipped with white. The caterpillar measures about four inches in length, and is of a most gorgeous green and yellow colour, alternate transverse bands of these colours running along the sides. It has eight small eyes in a line below the transverse bands, and a horn on its tail. It feeds on the potato, the pupa making a cell for itself underground, and appearing in the largest numbers between May and July; but as a fresh crop of potatoes is planted every three months in the Canaries, the caterpillars are found in small numbers all the year round.
When bred in captivity the pupa is delicate, quite five out of ten dying in their cases.