THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 27 



Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phal.^n^. in the British Museum, 

 Vol iv. By Sir George F. Hampson, Bart. London: 1903; xx + 689 

 pages, with a supplementary volume of coloured plates. 



With this volume the Noctuidae are begun, the classification to be 

 used is outlined, and about one-tenth of the species are treated. Fifteen 

 subfamilies are recognized, based on the usual structural characters, but 

 used in a new order, and a very commendable one it seems to us. The 

 first subfamily, the one treated in this volume, is the Agrotinte, containing 

 all those Noctuids with trifid venation of the hind wings and spines on the 

 hind tibisB. This subfamily is remarkably well represented in North 

 America, so that the volume consists largely of our familiar names — I 

 ought to say our familiar species, for the names are very largely changed. 

 The sequence of genera, too, is a new one. The little day-Hying 

 Heliolonche modicella heads our list, followed by the Heliothids and 

 vSchinias, and finally the bulk of the Agrotids proper. These changes in 

 the generic names were fully to be expected, since now for the first time 

 all the old names are applied to the world fauna. Besides this, secondary 

 sexual characters are not used in generic definition, and this naturally 

 makes a great change in the names as heretofore applied by American 

 authors. We have been in the habit of using these characters very 

 largely. I am therefore pleased to note that there are some of our names 

 that are not changed. I regret that Hiibner's " Tentamen " is not adopted. 

 Am.erican economic students will hardly recognize the familiar Boll-worm 

 under the new appellation of Chloridea obscura, Fab. A part of this change 

 could have been avoided by recognizing the Tentamen ; it would have 

 allowed the retention of the generic name Heliothis. Our large genus 

 Carneades ( Paragrotis, Pratt, of Bull. 52, U. S. Nat. Mus.), made still 

 larger by the addition of Rhizagrotis and Corhizagrotis, is called Euxoa, 

 Hiibn. It would be Agrotis if the Tentamen names were applied. The 

 term Nodtia, Linn., does not appear in the volume, being applied to the 

 South American species strix. The process of arriving at this and other 

 types of genera is not elucidated, and it is not clear to us. We can only 

 hope that future workers will not feel obliged to review the matter, and 

 change all the names again. 



A few new genera are based on our species, and two new North 

 American species are described. Most ill-ad visedly, the name Calif orniox 

 has been selected for one of these. This specific name has been used 



