THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 349 



I must trouble you with two more caterpillars that are feeding 

 on grass in the fields and on our vegetables in the gardens : 

 the striped one has not appeared here before this year. — 

 John Hotcard. 



[The striped caterpillar is that of Luperina cespitis, and is 

 reckoned by no means a common insect : pray save some, 

 and try to rear the moths, which you will find very accept- 

 able to the majority of Entomologists. The plain, indeed 

 dirty-looking, caterpillar is tiiat of Agrotis Segetum. — E. iV.] 



Diantluiecia ccenia in Ireland. — Among the larvjB which [ 

 took at Tramore, County Waterford, last year, there were a 

 few very dark ones, quite different from the larvae of D. cap- 

 sophila or D. capsincola, and which changed to pupae a few 

 weeks afterwards. One of these emerged from the pupa state 

 on the 7th of August: when it was set I sent it to Mr. 

 Birchall, and I received a reply from him slating that it was 

 Dianthoecia caesia, only found last year at the Isle of Man. — 

 Warren Wright ; Floraville, Dublin, August , 1867. — ^Na- 

 turalist's Circular? 



Dianthoecia Barretiii in Ireland. — Mr. Kirby announces, 

 in the ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' the capture of six 

 specimens on the 27th of June ; they were rather worn. Is not 

 this an Irish variety of D. conspersa, afflicted with melanism 

 like the Irish Eupithecia venosata ? All the markings are 

 exactly^ in the same place ; the only difference is in the 

 shade of colour. This idea is not mine originally, but I think 

 it quite worth entertaining. — E. N. 



Folia nigrocincta in the Isle of Man. — A day or two 

 since my friend Mr. Greening, of Warrington, sent me a 

 Noctua to name, which he bred from a larva found by him- 

 self in the Isle of Man: it is Polia nigrociucta of Ochsen- 

 heimer, a species new to Britain. It is not uncommon in 

 Hungary, the South of France, &c., and is easily distinguished 

 from P. Havocincta by the following characters : — The supe- 

 rior wings are bluish gray thickly irrorated with black, inter- 

 spersed with minute orange dots ; and a narrow black band 

 occupies the centre of the wing, extending from the costa to 

 the inner margin. The inferior wings are while in the male, 

 without any median line, and nearly black in the female. It 

 is variable in size and in the intensity of the markings. 

 I ])ossess a fine series from France and (Jermauy. — Henry 

 Duuhledaij ; Epping, Scpieuiber 14, 1807. 



