Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/276

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

216

ANGERONA PRUNARIA.

PLATE XXVII. Fig. 1.

Phal. Geom. prunaria, Linn.—Hipparchus prunaria, Leach, Samou., Curtis.—Angerona prunaria, Duponchel.

We have been induced to figure this interesting specimen of a well known European geometrine moth (occurring also in this country), for the purpose of exemplifying a phenomenon perhaps more frequently observed among this tribe of insects than any other, namely, what is called Gynandromorphism, or the union of both sexes (at least in external features) in the same individual. In this instance the whole right side is that of a male and the left that of a female, insomuch that one would say some person had been amusing themselves by attaching the wings in this manner; but the impossibility of observing the suture at the point of junction soon convinces us that there has been no artifice in the case, and that Nature alone has produced this anomalous union. In truth, such occurrences are not very rare, and various lists of different kinds of Gynandromorphism have been published by authors. The example here figured is called semi-lateral gynandromorphism, and is the most common kind