This very striking species has occurred in the South Island at Mount Arthur, Mount Hutt, and Ben Lomond, Lake Wakatipu.
The expansion of the wings is 1½ inches. All the wings are dark greyish-black, speckled with bluish-grey scales. The fore-wings have five rather indistinct wavy darker transverse lines, and a very broad darker shading near the termen; there is a fine white mark near the apex, continued as an indistinct wavy line towards the tornus. The hind-wings have three or four indistinct darker transverse lines, and a very broad terminal shading; there are two, more or less distinct, fine, wavy, white lines, the first a little below the middle, and the second near the termen; the cilia are dark grey barred with pale grey. On the under side all the wings are dark blackish-grey, traversed by six broad, wavy whitish lines.
The perfect insect appears in December, January and February, and frequents rocky crags on mountains, at elevations of from 4,700 to 5,700 feet above the sea-level. It delights to rest on blackened rocks in the hottest sunshine, but dashes away with the greatest rapidity on the approach of the collector, so that it is generally rather difficult to capture.
Genus 14.—NOTOREAS, Meyr.
"Face roughly haired. Palpi moderate, second joint with long or very long spreading hairs beneath, terminal joint moderate or rather long, often concealed. Antennæ in male bi-pectinated. Thorax beneath more or less strongly clothed with long hairs. Fore-wings with vein 6 rising out of 9, 7 almost from angle of areole, 10 anastomosing moderately with 9, 11 anastomosing moderately or very shortly with 10, 12 free. Hind-wings normal."—(Meyrick.) (See Plate [II]., fig. 43, fore-wing of Notoreas brephos.)
This interesting genus, of which we have no less than fifteen species, comprises a number of gaily coloured little insects, chiefly inhabiting mountain regions. All the species are day-fliers, and most of them only appear during the hottest sunshine. Mr. Meyrick regards the genus Notoreas as most closely approaching to the ancestor of the family Hydriomenidæ.
NOTOREAS INSIGNIS, Butl.
(Aspilates insignis, Butl., Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1877, 393, pl. xliii. 1. Pasithea insignis, Meyr., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xvi. 85. Notoreas insignis, ib. xviii. 184.)
(Plate [VIII]., fig. 3 ♂.)
This very striking species has been taken in the South Island at Castle Hill.