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IV. On the Lepidoptera of the Amazons, collected hy 

 Dr. James W. H. Trail, durincj the years 1873 

 to 1875. By Arthur Gardiner Butler, F.L.S., 

 F.Z.S., &c. 



[Read February 5th, 1879.] 



Part III.— NOCTUITES. 



Dr. Trail obtained 149 species of Noctuites during his 

 expedition i;p the Amazons, but four of these were not in 

 a sufficiently perfect condition for identification ; so that 

 the number may be reckoned as 145, of these species no 

 less than 55 are forms new to science. 



Owing to the recklessness Avith which some authors 

 have characterized genera in this tribe, I have been saved 

 the necessity of describing any ; but, at the same time, 

 this recklessness has caused so much confusion in the 

 identification and location of species, that hardly a genus 

 of the New World Noctuites exists which does not need 

 more or less rcAasion. 



Family BOMBYCOID^. 



MlCROC^LlA, Guenee. 



1. Microcaelia discincta, n. sp. 



Primaries above whity-brown, feebly mottled with clay 

 colour; external fourth, excepting at apex, chocolate- 

 brown, crossed internally by an ill-defined series of small 

 tawny spots, and limited by a brown-edged transverse 

 whitish discal line ; discoidal spots ill-defined, greyish 

 with pale margins ; a tapering subbasal streak, an oblique 

 dash near the centre of the costal area and a cuneiform 

 costal spot beyond the cell chocolate-brown ; two parallel 

 bisinuated brown lines from the cell to the inner margin ; 

 a marginal series of whitish-edged black dots ; fi'inge pale 

 brown, spotted with dark brown ; secondaries sericeous 

 smoky- brown, paler towards the base ; fringe whitish, 

 traversed by an ill-defined brown line : head and thorax 



TRANS. EXT. SOC. 1879. PART I. (aPR.) C 2 



