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.
SPHINX CONVOLVULI or BATATÆ.
This moth is found in England, and all over Europe. It is a large moth, measuring about five inches across the wings. All four wings are of a variegated grey-brown colour, the body having a longitudinal grey stripe, increasing in width at the base, and five stripes of pink and black across it alternately. The antennæ are somewhat longer and more slender than those of the Death’s Head moth. They are feathered, and grey in colour, terminating in a sharp point. The insect is provided with a very long proboscis, which one sees it inserting into the centre of the flowers at dusk. During the winter months it is met with commonly in some years. The caterpillar, which measures four inches in length, feeds on the sweet potato in the fields, and on the petunia and phlox in gardens. It is of a brown-grey colour, shading to green on the back, having black longitudinal stripes along the back, and transverse black and white stripes surmounted by white spots at the sides. It is a night-feeder, hiding itself under the leaves or in the ground at day-time, and constructing the pupa-case underground. It is delicate and difficult to rear in captivity, like the Atropos.
DEILEPHILA TITHYMALI.
Plate IV.—Fig. 4.