A NOTE ON NONAORIA NEURICA, HB. 165 



I may add that on May 1st, Mr. Edelsten came to my house and 

 brought a specimen of what he calls neurica, and which satisfied the 

 difierential points he had laid down. Without going any further it 

 struck me that this example was not essentially like my recollection 

 of Hiibner's fig. 381, and that the point at issue was, after all, the 

 determination of Hiibner's figure, and Mr. Edelsten agreed that this 

 was so. I referred to Hn'tish Xoctuae and their Varieties, i., p. 49, 

 where 1 had described Hiibner's fig. 381. I read this description 

 against Edelsten's characters and specimen that he had with him. I 

 pointed out that the figure had "no white collar," no " three white 

 dots" along the central line, whilst, being an upperside figure, the 

 underside could not be referred to. On the contrary, I pointed out 

 that my description noted " a row of five or six small longitudinal 

 spots along the median nervure, the lower half of the reniform occurring 

 as a dark spot surrounded by a whitish ring," the latter coinciding 

 exactly with his diagnostic character of arnndineta, though not with 

 the specimen which he had with him and called neurica. He then 

 siiggested that I had made an erroneous description, which appeared 

 to me impossible, as I copied all these descriptions from the original 

 works, and so comparison was made with Hlibner at the first oppor- 

 tunity. May 5th. The figure tallies absolutely with my description, 

 it shows " no white collar," merely the pale-tipped cilia on the crown ; 

 it shows no " three white spots " along the median line, as it ought to 

 do were it neurica, Edelsten ; it shows the bottom of the reniform as 

 "a black spot encircled with white," as it should do were it the 

 arundineta of Schmidt, and the neurica of Hiibner, and of Britain. 

 The details of the elbowed line, etc., also agree with our insect. As 

 a result of this examination I confirm my description as accurate, and 

 I insist more strongly than ever that our British species is neurica, Hb. 



It is to be confessed that, like so many of Hiibner's figures 

 on which one has to form a critical opinion, fig. 381 is defective ; 

 its ground colour is not good, but it is equally bad for Mr. 

 Edelsten's other species, which seems to me to agree with our 

 insect (as Schmidt also remarks) in ground colour, shape and 

 general appearance. In wing-shape, Hiibner's fig. 381 comes broadly 

 nearest to Edelsten's J figure, Ent. Bee, xix., pi. ii., fig. 7 [from a 2 

 var. arundineta taken by Schmidt himself (see op. cit., p. 59),] being 

 somethat triangular, and altogether wanting in that squareness of 

 wing which characterises the ,^ , and which is, admittedly, our species ; 

 the hindwing, too, is much too dark for anything that Mr. Edelsten has 

 figured, but of that peculiar dark grey which an artist is inclined to 

 make black and a photographer brings out almost white, the body, 

 too, is as hopeless for one insect as the other, if the wings be con- 

 sidered 2 • But, if a critical opinion is to be founded on the insect, the 

 one character that stands out is Edelsten's of arundineta {Ent. Rec, 

 xix., p. 59), " central spot black, encircled, or partly so, with white." 

 Whether this be really a specific character or not I do not know. 

 Whether or no there be two species I am not prepared to discuss, but 

 I do know that Hiibner's fig. 381 agrees on Edelsten's own showing 

 with arundineta, and not with the insect he calls neurica, in other 

 words that neurica, Hb., fig. 381, is Edelsten's arundineta. 



Edelsten seems to have satisfied himself that his neurica is that of 

 Schmidt, but his supposition {op. cit., p. 67) th&t neurica, Tutt, Brit. 



