154 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



THE NOCTUID^ OF NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE. 



(Second Paper.) 



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



2. — Sub-family Noctuince. 

 Tribe Bombyeoidi. 



The sub-family Noctuince embraces the typical Noetuidce, and we may 

 take the genera Agrotis or Hadena as normal forms, from which we have 

 a mass of more or less divergent structural groups. The characters 

 which are made the basis of generic sub-division, according to a natural 

 system which I find most plainly indicated in the writings of Stephens 

 and Lederer, need not delay us here, for the reason that I have exposed 

 them in previous writings. It remains for me to briefly point out that I 

 have changed the basis for a classification of our North American genera 

 from that of Guenee to that of Lederer, commencing in my first syn- 

 onymical list, Buffalo, 1874, to bring them together in a preliminary shape. 

 When, nearly thirty years ago, I commenced my study of these forms, 

 there were not a dozen species named in any collection, public or private, 

 in America. In my last (MS.) list are over 1,500 names, and three-fourths 

 of this number are taken from ray descriptions or identifications. This 

 represents continuous work ; for large collections were not at first in 

 existence, and the new forms came in singly, or in small parcels, and had 

 to be classified ; so that, from this fact, the generic determinations were 

 often tentative. Added to this, the difficulty of determining the species 

 described by Guenee and Walker, and the absence of illustrations, pro- 

 duced a state of affairs in our knowledge of the Noctuidee, which the 

 student of to-day is largely exempted from. And la verita e la pin 

 ingrata delle dulcinee. 



The main mass of the Noetuidce falls into three divisions, or sub- 

 family groups, only separable by their comparative form. These are : the 

 typical Noetuidce (Noctuince)., the Noctuce nonfaseiatae of Borkhausen ; 

 the geometriform Noetuidce ( Catocalince), the Noetuce faseiatae of Bork- 

 hausen ; and the pyralidiform Noetuidce (Deltoidince). The fact that the 

 latter are not separable from the Noetuidce, and are not Pyralidce, was 

 first shown by Herrick Schceffer. 



In otie North American genus, I have shown that vein 5 is midway 



