1915.] 1^7 



fore-wiugs, the pale nervures and the light reuiform dot ; in the hind- 

 wings, the short fine discoidal line. The pale nervures and the line on 

 the hind- wings are sufficient for British and continental examples, 

 though the latter character is frequently indistinct in non-British 

 insects. The reniform light dot is a good indication when present, 

 but insects will be found not infrequently with the dot as dark as in 

 any gllvago. Asiatic examples. show a tendency toward a darkening of 

 the nervures, and the Alexander Mt. specimens have them black. The 

 outline of the insects affords but little indication, as many of the light 

 European forms of gilvago are as sharply angled as any ocellaris. 



In a short series of gilvago from Vienna, I have an insect which, 

 in point of ground colour markings and the absence of any trace of 

 the line on the hind- wings, is to be counted as this species ; it has, how- 

 ever, the pale nervures of ocellaris, and the wing fringes are unicoloroue 

 as in the typical ocellaris group, and not speckled as in gilvago and ab. 

 intermedia. Can this be the hybrid gilvago X ocellaris Bkh., so often 

 the subject of speculation among continental authors ? 



Genitalia. As Mr. F. N". Pierce had no opportunity of including 

 a description of this species in his " Genitalia of the British Noctuidae," 

 I give the following, made from a British and a Continental insect 

 mounted in 1912. 



Mr. Pierce, in sending the description, remarks that "the difference 

 in the three species, ocellaris Bkh., gilvago Esp., and fulvago L., is 

 largely confined to one of the cornuti ; the general build is very similar." 



" Valva (harpe) with corona. Cuciillus divided. Harpe (clasper) long and 

 pointed. Ampulla short and thick, not smooth. Uncus narrower towards the 

 tip. Vesica with bands of teeth, a long cvirved cornvitus, a long bulbed cornutus." 



The latter cornutus is the point of difference in the three species. 

 In gilvago it is well bulbed, short, and curved ; in fulvago the bulb is 

 slight, the cornutus is straight and longer than in gilvago ; in ocellaris 

 it springs from a large bulb, is longer than in fulvago, and is very 

 slightly curved. 



This winter my friend Mr. Backlake has mounted a large number 

 of all thi-ee species, and we have found that the relative sizes of the 

 cornuti are constant throughout. In the Algerian insects already 

 referred to the cornutus of the pale form (2) is not to be differentiated 

 from British ocellaris, the red form (1) is more bulbed, and is short, 

 and thick as in gilvago, but not curved. 



Life-history. Mr. H. O. Mills has already dealt with the early 

 stages of the species in the Ent. Mo. Mag. for December, 1908, Vol. 



