NOCTUAS. 



237 



us attractive as sugar to the night-wandering 

 Noctuas. It has also been found an excellent 

 expedient to sugar isolated thistle-heads when 

 standing up in fields. It is quite useless to 

 offer any of these baits for Noctuas on a bright 

 moonlight night. 



As a general rule, it may be said that the 

 fore wings of Xoctuas entirely cover and hide 

 the hind wings when the insect is at rest ; 

 they are never raised over the back as in 

 Butterflies, or rolled round the body as in the 

 Footmen : the ornamentation of the fore wings 

 is very rarely indeed continued on the hind 

 wings, as we so frequently see it more or less 

 conspicuously in the Geometers ; but it is very 

 uniform, that is, it is generally referable to 

 one pattern, which undergoes almost endless 

 modification for instance, near the centre of 

 the wing, in the place occupied by the dis- 

 coidal spot, which I have described in so many 

 of the Geometers, there are two ocellated or 

 eye-like spots, that is, spots having a different 

 colour in the centre from that on the circum- 

 ference : the one nearest the body is generally 

 round, or nearly so, and is called the orbicular 

 discoidal spot ; the other nearer the tip of the 

 wing, but still not very far distant from the 



st, is kidnej -shaped, and is called the reni- 

 discoidal spot ; these two discoidal spots 

 1 be frequently mentioned in the descrip- 



ns which follow ; the hind wings, besides 



ing less variegated are generally paler; 



vertheless, in some instances the hind 



ings are brilliantly yellow, red, or blue, 

 these bright colours being transversely inter- 

 sected with one or two black bands. 



With regard to the position of the Noctuas 

 in a natural system, I am unable to perceive 

 their resemblance to the Geometers, which 

 have always hitherto been placed between 

 the Noctuas and the Deltoids. The genus 

 Acr<>//rf<i unites the Noctuas with the 

 Arctias, and the smaller Xoctuas merge so 

 gradually and naturally into the Deltoids, that 

 it is utterly impossible to tell where one tribe 



ds and the other begins : the series would 

 not only interrupted, but entirely broken 

 by the intervention of the Geometers. 



412. The Buff-arches (Gonophora dera/t/i). 



412. THE BUFF-ARCHES. The antenna? are 

 very slightly pubescent in the male, quite 

 simple in the female ; the fore wings are broad 

 and ample, the tip very slightly arched ; their 

 colour is various, and their ornamentation ex- 

 tremely beautiful : an oblique white bar ex- 

 tends from the costa near its base to the anal 

 angle, and this bar emits a branch towards 

 the base of the thorax ; a second white bar 

 extends from the tip of the wing to the anal 

 angle, where it unites with the oblique bar 

 already described ; these two bars unite with 

 the costal margin in forming a triangle, which 

 encloses at least two-thirds of the wing ; the 

 enclosed area is almost white near the costal 

 margin, sienna-brown towards the base, and 

 smoky-brown towards the hind margin ; the 

 whole is exquisitely and delicately pen- 

 cilled ; the basal area of the wing is smoky- 

 brown, and has a semi-transparent appearance; 

 the hind-marginal area is brown, transversely 

 divided into five lines, and these are traversed 

 by a scalloped line of pure white, which is so 

 distinct as to appear like a white thread : the 

 hind wings are smoky-brown ; the head is 

 umber-brown ; the thorax brown, with its 

 fore and hind margin raised in a ridge or 

 crest ; the body is brown ; the second, third, 

 and fourth segments are dorsally crested. 



The CATERPILLAR rests in a slightly bent 

 position, both extremities being held clear of 

 its food-plant, and the anal claspers unat- 

 tached : the head is exserted, and has an 

 almost square outline ; the body is smooth and 

 velvety ; the colour of both head and body is 

 a raw sienna-brown, with a rather paler 

 medio-dorsal stripe: on each side of the fourth 

 segment is a round white spot, and very 



