NOCTUIDiE. DYPTERYGIA. 167 



Common throughout the metropolitan district, frequenting banks 

 where nettles abound. « Bottisham."— iJeu. L. Jenyns. " Epping." 

 —Mr. H. Doubleday. " Common in Salop."— -Ret^. F. W. Hope. 



Genus CIII. — Dypterygia mihi. 



Palpi conspicuous, ascending, slender, triarticulate ; the two basal joints clothed 

 with elongate scales, the apical joint considerably exposed, covered with short 

 scales, linear, and as long as the basal one, which is sUghtly bent and more 

 robust than the second ; the latter is about one half as long again as the first, 

 slightly attenuated towards the apex : maxillw moderate. Antennw very short, 

 rather stout, Simple in both sexes, ciUated within and pubescent in the male : 

 head slightly crested ; eyes small, naked : thorax robust, thick, crested on the 

 back: wings incumbent; anterior short, broad, subtriangular, subdentate; 

 posterior ample : body rather stout, crested on the back : legs short, posterior 

 tibise robust, compressed, with a fascicle of hair on the outer edge. Larva 

 naked, with a conical protuberance on the anal segment : pupa foUiculated, 

 with four apical spines. 



Perhaps of all the groups of Noctuidae, contained in the works 

 of Ochsenheimer, there is none which includes so heterogeneous 

 an assemblage as his genus Xylena (Xylina Treit.), or which is con- 

 structed upon more artificial principles, the various members of 

 which it is composed scarcely agreeing in any one particular, ex- 

 cepting in the resemblance of their colour to wood ; in fact, their 

 discrepancies of habit and structure are so great, that I doubt the 

 propriety of the juxta-position of this and the three following ge- 

 nera, which form a portion of the group in question. Few entomolo- 

 gists are ignorant of the manner in which those common insects, 

 Phalsense putris and polyodon, Linne, repose; the former with 

 incumbent wings, the superior crossing each other, and closely 

 applied to its subdepressed body; the latter with dcflcxed wings 

 meeting over its slightly elevated and crested back; — characters 

 which have been stated, in a comment upon the genus Gortyna, to 

 be of sufficient importance to divide the Noctuidse into sections, but 

 which are conveniently omitted, when they serve to disunite genera 

 that have been previously united. As the abundance of several of 

 the insects (especially of the two above-mentioned) belonging to 

 this group, will enable any one to verify what I have above ad- 

 vanced — and as I conceive the cause of science and of truth will be 

 best answered by separating, rather than by uniting, such discordant 

 insects, and as I am, moreover, a strenuous advocate for the appli- 

 cation of generic terms, in lieu of the almost useless (though occa- 



