DASYCHIRA FORTUNATA.
Plate IV.—Fig. 11.
In colour a dull grey moth. The fore-wings are ash-coloured, variegated with whitish on the upper side. The reniform spot is rust-coloured in the male and whitish in the female. The transverse lines are black and dentated, the submarginal line maculated. The hind-wings are grey, with a slight lunule in the middle; the underside uniform grey. The body is less stout than the D. Fascelina (Linn.). The abdomen is long in the male and longer in the female. The antennæ are pectinated in the male, simple in the female. The legs are thickly clothed with hair, the feet yellowish beneath. Although the caterpillar has not been described, it presumably has much the same characteristics as its allies, and is probably greyish, with tufts of hair on its back; it feeds on the Pinus Canariensis.
This moth is allied to the English, and European species Dasychira Fascelina (Dark Tussock), but is probably peculiar to the Islands. It has been described as being found in the Islands of Palma and Hiero by Rogenhofer in the “Verhandlungen des Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien,” vol. 41 (for 1891), p. 566. The specimen illustrated was drawn from one of two presented to the South Kensington Museum by the Rev. O. E. Benthall, who found the chrysalides on trunks of the Canary pine near Guimar, Teneriffe, about 2,000 feet above the sea, and as far as the author can ascertain it has not before been recorded as occurring in Teneriffe.