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Vol. XLII. LONDON, JUNE, 1910. No. 6. 



NOCTUID NOTES. 



BY F. H. WOLLEY DOD, MILLARVILLE, ALTA. 



Xylina Treit. {Graptolitha Hiibn., Hamps. Cat ). 



Amongst the many errors in nomenclature brought to light by Sir 

 George Hampson's most valued work on the Noctuidse, is one concerning 

 two of our commonest eastern Xylinas. 



In 187 1 Riley described what he believed to be a very variable 

 species as X. cinerea. In 1874 Grote recognized that the name referred 

 to a mixture of species, and choosing a specimen of one of them as a type 

 to hold Dr. Riley's name, described another form as laticinerea. In 1879 

 Prof. Fernald discovered that Walker's antetuiata, which had been 

 described in 1858 from an unknown locality, came from North America, 

 and was the species chosen by Grote to hold Riley's name, which therefore 

 sank. Grote made the reference, and at the same time tentatively 

 separated and described a third form from the group as cinerosa. Then 

 Riley, finding cinerosa preoccupied in the genus by a European species of 

 Guenee's, cited Grotei as the name to be used for Grote's cinerosa. 



The foregoing is old, and well known, but Sir George Hampson's 

 changes are more recent, and as yet but little known. The European 

 cinerosa Gn., has now turned out to be a synonym, and Hampson 

 therefore restores Grote's name in place of the long familiar Grotei. But 

 he has also shown us that hitherto Grote's two species have generally stood 

 reversed in collections, and that the large gray-sprinkled species, with 

 whitish contrasting orbicular, and without brown in reniform, is really 

 cinerosa = Grotei, and that laticinerea is the smaller, less gray, and more 

 common species, of which Winnipeg Smith is correctly referred by him 

 as a synonym. I have studied the types of all the above names. The 

 variation is apt to be confusing, and cinerosa and laticinerea appeared to 

 me to be mixed at the British Museum as elsewhere, but the type of 

 laticinerea is figured by Hampson, and a specimen like the type of 

 cinerosa, and both figures are easily recognizable, The synonymy now 

 Stands ; 



