January, 1886.] -^q 



THE HABITS OF NONA Git lA CANN^. 

 I BY F. D. WHEELER, M.A. 



For mauy years past this species has had a peculiar interest for 

 me ; as long ago as 1871, when I first commenced working the fens 

 with an attracting lamp, it turned up at my light. For some years 

 only a stray specimen or so occurred, all from various parts of the 

 shores of Barton Broad ; but in 1878 I was fortunate enough to light 

 upon a spot in the same fens where N. canncB seems to be something 

 more than a mere straggler ; at least, from that date to the present, I 

 have never failed to take it there in greater or less abundance (chiefly 

 the latter). 



Like most moths, N. canned has very distinct habits of its own, a 

 word or two on which may, perhaps, not be without interest to those 

 who have had no personal acquaintance with this extremely local 

 jspecies. First as to time of emergence, my own experience would tend 

 to make it a much later insect than is generally supposed. Twice only 

 have I known single specimens to occur so early as the second week 

 in August, while the bulk of my captures have been in September ; in 

 fact, I have invariably found N. typhcd well on the wing before any of 

 its rarer congeners turned up. As soon as dusk sets in canncB commences 

 its flight, the females taking precedence of the other sex, so that of the 

 very few I have taken on the wing half were secured before I lit my 

 lamp, and only on tv/o specially favourable nights have I known them to 

 be attracted by the light. The males, on the other hand, fly from dark to 

 about 10 p.m., or 10.30 at the latest, with a direct and moderately swift 

 T flight, but without any of the whirr and dash that characterize typlics, 

 and but just clearing the top of the herbage, or even flying through it 

 where the stuff is long. They are powerfully attracted by light, and 

 I have hardly ever known them to leave the lamp until, indeed, my 

 invitations to enter a pill box became too pressing to be resisted. This 

 peculiarity makes working for canned the very luxury of entomologizing ; 

 mooring your boat in a convenient creek, you rig up the covering, boil 

 the kettle, and make all preparations for the night, hoisting your 

 attracting lamp within a foot or two of the boat. Presently, as the 

 dusk comes on, the first moths demand your attention ; Chilo forjicellus 

 and mucronellus are still on the wing, with GatacJysta lemnalis and a 

 late specimen or two of Paraponyx stratiotalis and other common 

 things, but the bulk of the fen species are over, and soon this early 

 activity is past, and scarce anything is to be seen save the bats and 

 PhryganidcB, or, possibly, a few Cidaria testata, while the stillness of 



