4IO LEPIDOPTERA 



species are native in Britain. Packard maintains the family 

 Nolidae as distinct.^ 



The sub-family Nycteolinae consists of a few small moths the 

 position of which has always been uncertain ; Nycteola (better 

 known as SarrothriiJus), Halias, and Earias are all British genera 

 that have been placed amongst Tortrices, to which they l)ear a 

 considerable resemblance. SarrotJiripas is at present placed by 

 Hampson in Noctuidae, l)y others in Lithosiidae, Ijy Meyrick in 

 Arctiidae. The sub-family forms the family Cymbidae of Kirby;"^ 

 it includes at present only about 70 species, all belonging to the 

 Eastern hemisphere. Two types of larvae are known in it : one 

 bare, living exposed on leaves : the other, Earias, hairy, living 

 among rolled-up leaves. Halias 2)rasinana is known from the 

 testimony of numerous auditors to produce a sound when on the 

 wing, but the modus operandi has not been satisfactorily ascer- 

 tained. Sound-production seems to lie of more frequent occurrence 

 in Arctiidae than it is in any other family of Lepidoptera ; 

 Dionychojms niveus produces a sound by, it is believed, friction 

 of the wings. In the case of the genera Setina and Chelonia 

 the process is said to l)e peculiar to the male sex : Laboulbene 

 believes it to proceed from drum-like vesicles situate one on each 

 side of the base of the metathorax.^ 



Fam. 35. Agaristidae. — An interesting assemblage of moths, 

 many of them diurnal and of vivid colours, others crepuscular. 

 There is consideralile variety of appearance in the family, althougli 

 it is but a small one, and many of its members remind one of 

 other and widely separated families of Lepidoptera. The style 

 and colour of the Japanese Eiisemia viUicoides are remarkably 

 like our Arcfia villica. In some forms the antennae are some- 

 what thickened towards the tip and hooked, like those of the 

 Skipper butterflies. The family consists at present of alxmt 250 

 species, l)ut we doul)t its Ijeing a sufficiently natural one. It is 

 very widely distriljuted, with the exception that it is quite absent 

 from Europe and the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean Sea. 

 In North America it is well represented. The larvae, so far as 

 known, are not very remarkable ; they have some lateral tufts of 

 hair, as w^ell as longer hairs scattered over the body. 



^ Amer. Xatural. xxix. 1895, p. 801. 



- Catalogue of Lepidoptera, Heteroccr a, i. 1892. 



^ Ann. Soc. ent. France (4), iv. 1SG4, ji. 689. 



