New Zealand Moths and Butterflies (Macro-Lepidoptera)Hudson, G. V. (George Vernon)
Science
New Zealand Moths and Butterflies (Macro-Lepidoptera)
Hudson, G. V. (George Vernon)
Lepidoptera -- New Zealand
We have one species.
OROPHORA UNICOLOR, Butl.
(_Psyche unicolor_, Butl., Proc. Zool. Soc., London, 1877, 381. _Orophora
toumatou_, Fereday, Trans. N. Z. Inst. x. 262, pl. ix. _Orophora
unicolor_, Meyr., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xxii. 212.)
(Plate XIII., fig. 7 [M].)
This odd-looking little insect has been found by Mr. Fereday, at Rakaia.
The expansion of the wings is hardly 1 inch. _All the wings are rather
broad, rounded, and very sparsely covered with dusky brown hair-like
scales_; the body is very hairy, and the antennæ are slightly
bi-pectinated. The female is apterous.
The life-history is thus described by Mr. Fereday: "I have never seen the
larva. Its case measures in length about 16 lines (1-3/8 inches); the
exterior is covered with pieces of stems of grass from a line to 5 lines in
length, laid longitudinally and in the manner of thatch; the interior is
thinly lined with fine silk. The cases are found fixed to the twigs of the
Wild Irishman (_Discaria toumatou_), but it may be inferred from the
covering of the case, that it probably does not feed on the shrub but upon
the tussock grass, generally growing where the shrub is found. It is some
years since I found the cases on _Discaria toumatou_, growing in the
river-beds of the Rakaia and Waimakariri, on the Canterbury Plains, and I
did not find any case in its earlier stage before the larva had fed up and
changed into the pupa state."[67]
All Mr. Fereday's specimens were bred from the cases, and to the best of my
belief no one has ever observed the insect on the wing. It is evidently a
very scarce species, and is probably restricted to a few river-beds in the
South Island.
{127}VII.--THE TORTRICINA.
Not dealt with in this volume.
VIII.--THE TINEINA.
Not dealt with in this volume.
IX.--THE MICROPTERYGINA.
The following are the principal characters of the _Micropterygina_:--
"Fore-wings with an oblique membranous dorsal process (jugum) near base,
forming with the dorsal margin a notch or sinus, which receives the costa
of the hind-wings. Hind-wings without frenulum, 1_c_ present, with 11 or
more veins, neuration essentially, almost or quite identical with that of
fore-wings. Fore-wings and hind-wings more than usually remote at origin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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