26 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE NOCTUID^ OF EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA 



COMPARED. 



(Fifth Paper.) 



BY A. R. GROTE, A. M., BREMEN, GERMANY. 



Tribe Orthosiini. 



The vestiture is woolly, and in this lies a distinguishing character from 

 the Agrotini and Hadeni7ii^ which some genera much resemble, while the 

 body is hardly tufte'd ; the rather broad thorax has sometimes a median 

 ridge. The colours of the moths are often shades of brown, red and 

 yellow, like the autumn foliage, in which many of the hibernating species 

 hide. The eyes of the first genera are hairy ; in several the tibise are 

 spinose, the reverse being usually the case. Whether our, mostly western, 

 species allied to Perigrapha cincta are strictly congeneric, I have not 

 been able to decide. Acerra noi'tnalis has simple antennae in the male ; 

 the ornamentation in most cases suggests the relationship. There are two 

 European species of Perigrapha against seven related North American 

 species. The genus Tcejiiocavipa has twenty-two described American 

 species and only eleven European ; among these is one, alia, identical. 

 I have not a particle of doubt that for this genus the term Graphiphora 

 Hilbn., must be retained. My efforts to place the generic nomenclature 

 upon a final basis, by fixing the types in 1874, has met with thoughtless 

 opposition and incorrect criticism. The question of whether Hiibner, or 

 others, held our modern (supposed by empirics infallible) ideas upon genera, 

 is quite beside the question of the oldest and therefore proper name for a 

 genus. I have exposed this sort of reckless criticism in the second part 

 of my Check List, 1875, 1876. Only my desire to avoid contention and 

 to enable a comparison of our fauna by the use of the same terms, has 

 induced me to cede the present instance, because the name Graphiphora 

 taken from Hiibner (to whom we owe almost all the leading generic 

 names in the Noctuidae), had been mis-applied. I think, now, I may 

 have been wrong in this, and that Graphiphora should be used, as I or- 

 iginally proposed, with the type Gothica, and Taniocampa rejected. 

 Only in this way shall we obtain a stable nomenclature, and the European 

 catalogues must conform, if nearer conclusions are to be arrived at, and 

 lists are to be useful beyond a mere stringing of the different species. 



