CUT WORMS DEVASTATING DART MOTH. 315 



above alluded to,) which streak is crossed by two slender pale 

 lines, these lines not parallel with each other. This last mark 

 with the two pale lines across it, will alone distinguish this from 

 all our other moths. 



Our next most common species is the Devastating Dart 

 Agrotis devastator, (Plate 3, fig. 2,) thus named by Mr. Brace in 

 the year 1819, in a short article upon the cut-worm, published 

 in the first volume of Silliman's Journal, page 157. And it ap- 

 pears to be this same species, which has recently been figured 

 and named Jlgrotis Marshallana by Mr. Westwood, from a single 

 specimen found in England by T. Marshall, Esq., (Humphrey's 

 British Moths, vol. i, p. 122.) In this species the wings when 

 spread are from an inch and a half to over an inch and three- 

 fourths across. The fore wings are grayish brown, and are 

 crossed by four equidistant wavy whitish lines, which are edged 

 more or less with blackish. But commonly only the last one or 

 two of these lines can be perceived; and the last line has a row 

 of blackish triangular spots, like arrow heads, along its anterior 

 side, their points directed towards the base of the wing. Often 

 these spots are so obliterated that only one or two of the middle 

 ones can be discerned in a particular reflection of the light. 

 But it is by these spots more than any other character that I dis- 

 criminate specimens of this species; for it is variable, with its 

 marks obscure and more or less obliterated, from its wings when 

 flying having been fluttered and rubbed against grass, leaves, &c, 

 as is apt to be the case with most of the insects of this order. 



A third species, also very common, (Plate 3, fig. 6,) differs 

 generically from the two preceding, and appears to coincide more 

 closely with Graphiphora than with any other genus characterised 

 by European writers. It is named the clandestine owlet-moth, 

 JVoctua clandestina, by Dr. Harris. It is of an obscure brown or 

 gray color, its wings when most perfect marked as represented 

 in the figure. Our illustrations of these three species are quite 

 exact, and will give the reader a much clearer view of the com- 

 plicated markings of their wings than he can obtain from any 

 written description. 



