Melyrosoma Artemisiae

Thomas Vernon Wollaston published this drawing in his book ‘Insecta Maderensia’ in 1854. In the book he thanks Westwood for providing the illustrations, ‘Particularly, however, would I draw attention to the valuable help which I have received from J. O. Westwood, Esq., whose pencil has been so elaborately employed in the figures which I am thus enabled to attach, and by whom many of the minutest of the dissections were accomplished, — with a degree of delicacy, moreover, to which I did not myself at the commencement of this Work (though I have since succeeded in anatomizing the larger portion of them, likewise) lay claim.’

195. Melyrosoma Artemisiae, Woll (Tab. V. fig. 2.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘A well-defined species, and apparently peculiar to the two northern Dezertas. It appears to be scarce on the Dezerta Grande ; where, nevertheless, I first discovered it,— on the outer canvass of my tent, during the hot sunshine, at the end of May 1850. On the Flat Dezerta, or Ilheo Chao, however, it is far more abundant,—where a few days later (i. e. at the beginning of June) it occurred to me in profusion ; principally from amongst the large masses of Wormwood (Artemisia argentea, Herit.) with which that remarkable little island is in certain spots densely clothed.’