NOTES ON BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 105 



NEW SPECIES FOR 1864. 



NoNAGRiA BREViLiNEA, Fenn, Ent. Mo. Mag. 



Yol. i. p. 107. Frontispiece, Fig. 3. 



This interesting addition to our Leucanidce was made by 

 Mr. C. Fenn, who, on the 4th of August last, at Ranworth, 

 captured a male example as it was flying among Typha 

 latifolia. 



This species is not very closely allied to any described 

 Nonagritif but, on the whole perhaps, bears more resemblance 

 to N. neiirica than to any other known species, though it 

 could hardly be mistaken for it by the merest beginner. 



Of the excellent characters which Mr. Fenn has pointed 

 out in Nonagria brevilmea may be mentioned the short black 

 basal streak, like that of Apamea hasilbiea, from which the 

 insect derives its name, the entire absence of stigmata or 

 black spots on the fore-wing, the curved row of dots beyond 

 the middle (_as, for example, in Nonagria lutosa), the con- 

 spicuouly paler colour of the apical veins (somewhat like 

 those of Leucania ohsoleta), the perfectly immaculate hind 

 margin of the wings at the insertion of the cilia, the presence 

 of an almost obsolete row of dots on the hind-wing, and the 

 absence of any approach to a lunule on the same — many 

 other good characteristics might with ease be pointed out, 

 but Mr. Fenn has, I trust, already said enough upon the 

 subject to convince the most sceptical. Perhaps it may here 

 be well to remark that during a Yery pleasant day, in the 

 middle of October last, which I spent at Epping, the sub- 

 ject of N. hrevilinea became one of the topics of conversation, 

 and Mr. Doubleday certainly expressed himself as convinced 

 that Mr. Fenn's insect was a new species ; he did not, how- 

 ever, seem by any means so satisfied that Herr Schmidt had 

 acted judiciously in having named " arundineta" from recol- 

 lection of Hiibner's figure. 



