104 NOCTUAS. 



would plainly see distinctive marks which were 

 ahsolutely invisible to the untrained eye. The 

 traveller into distant lands often makes the same 

 remark, and, when he finds himself among black, 

 or even dark-skinned men, he finds them all 

 alike. He has to dwell among them for some 

 time before he discovers the points of difi'erence, 

 and then he wonders how he could ever have 

 confounded together faces so reaUy dissimilar. 



So it is with the Noctuas. At first, the 

 young observer is totally bewildered by the 

 similarity between the multitude of specimenfl 

 which he is sure to find, and it is not until his 

 eye has been trained by careful practice that he 

 is able to detect the characteristics which distin- 

 guish one species from another. To this general 

 rule there are exceptions, some of the !N"octuas 

 being splendidly and boldly coloured, but in 

 the majority of cases the hues are nothing but 

 various tints of brown. 



Our first example of the ^N'octuas is the pretty 

 Peach-blossom Moth {Thyatira hatis)^ this rather 

 poetical and very appropriate name being given 

 to it on account of the colours of the wings, 

 which bear some resemblance to the delicate rose 

 and white of the peach blossom. A figure of this 



