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At the bases of the wings lie their nerves. The fore-wings each have a heavy rib running from the base and gradually decreasing to the tip. This is called the costa. Its purpose is to bear the brunt of air-pressure in flight.
Neogama, another member of this family, is a degree smaller than Amatrix, but of the same shape. The fore-wings are covered with broken lines of different colours, the groundwork grey, with gold flushings, the lines and dots of the border very like the Sweetheart's. The back wings are pure gold, almost reddish, with dark brownish black bands, and yellow borders.
All of us are enthusiasts about these moths with their modest fore-wings and the gaudy brilliance of the wonderful 'after-wings, that are so bright as to give common name to the species. We are studying them constantly and hope soon to learn all we care to know of any moths, for our experience with them is quite limited when compared with other visitors from the swamp.
The under sides of the fore-wings were a delicate brownish grey, with heavy flushings of a purplish pink, a most beautiful colour. The back wings were dove colour near the abdomen, more of a mouse colour around the edges, and beginning strongly at the base, and spreading in lighter shade over the wing, was the same purplish pink of the front under-wing, only much stronger.
His fore-wings were a silvery lead colour, each vein covered with a stripe of orange-brown three times its width. The costa began in lead colour, and at half its extent shaded into orange-brown. Each front wing had six yellow spots, and a seventh faintly showing.
In Packard's "Guide to the Study of Moths", he writes: "Citheronia Regalis expands five to six inches, and its fore-wings are olive coloured, spotted with yellow and veined with broad red lines, while the hind wings are orange-red, spotted with olive, green, and yellow." He describes two other species. Citheronia Mexicana, a tropical moth that has drifted as far north as Mexico.
The trouble is this: Packard describes the fore-wings as `olive, the hind as `olive, and green. Holland makes no reference to colour, but on plate X, figure three, page eighty-seven, he reproduces Regalis with fore-wings of olive-green, the remainder of the colour as I describe and paint, only lighter.
He wore upon the skirts of his fine dark-colored frock-coat a red-orange border sewed with tiny round black buttons; across the middle of his fore-wings, like the sash of an order, was a broad red ribbon, and the spatter of white on the tips may have been his idea of epaulets; or maybe they were nature's Distinguished Service medals given him for conspicuous bravery, for there is no more gallant sailor of the skies than the Red Admiral.
The under sides of the front wings are a warm creamy tan, crossed by wide bands of dark brown and grey-brown, ending in a delicate grey mist at the edges. The back wings are the same tan shade, with red next the abdomen, and crossed by brown bands of deeper shade than the fore-wings. The shoulders are covered with long silky hair like the front wings.
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