5 VARIETIES OF NOCTIL& 



white, with a slightly shaded base. This description is written from 

 a specimen kindly lent me by Mr. Webb, and figured (not very satis- 

 factorily) ' Entom.' xiii., p. 49, fig. 2 (to the right hand). Mr. Webb 

 writes me with reference to this : " The central specimen is perhaps 

 more worthy of a varietal name than any of the sparganii. It occurs 

 in both sexes, but more commonly in the female." As a matter of 

 fact it is very little different from the type, except in the development 

 to the lineola from the dot on the median nervure. 



y. var. rufescens, mihi. The ground colour much suffused with 

 reddish ochreous, the characteristic markings and the longitudinal 

 fuscous shade under the median nervure generally strongly developed. 

 These red varieties are exceedingly suffused in some instances with 

 fuscous scales under all the nervures, and the hind wings, of the males 

 especially, are sometimes very dark. Hiibner figures this red form 

 (549), and I have one or two very strongly coloured specimens from 

 Germany. Mr. Sydney Webb has also sent me a red specimen cap- 

 tured in the south-east of England, where the form is, I believe, not 

 at all frequent. 



Nonagria, Och., arundinis, Fab. 



The type of this species is thus described by Fabricius : " Noctua 

 lee vis alis deflexis cinereis, punctis lunulisque marginalibus nigris, 

 snbtus macula centrali fusca." " Magna. Corpus cinereum, hirtum 

 imrnaculatum. Alas anticse obscure cinereaB, nitidulaa punctis parvis 

 nigris. In margine crassiori puncta tria pallida. Margo posticus 

 lunulis octo atris. Fosticaa pallidaB. Subtus anticas obscurse, posticaa 

 pallidaa macula centrali fusca " (' Mantissa,' p. 141, No. 54). The type 

 of both sexes in this species is of a pale greyish colour, the males 

 being but very little darker than the females. 



a. var. fraterna, Tr. The anterior wings of this variety are 

 suffused with deep reddish brown and black scales, in some specimens 

 to such an extent that the insect is almost black in colour. The hind 

 wings much darker than in the type, especially the females. This is 

 Guenee's var. A, of which he says : " Superior wings of a deep 

 blackish or reddish brown, which absorbs almost all the markings and 

 nervures ; nervures of hind wings blackish." Under the name of 

 fraterna, Tr., Guenee, somewhat erroneously, describes an intermediate 

 form between fraterna and the type. Treitschke ( ' Die Schmet.' &c., 

 vol. x., pt. 2, p. 99) writes : " Under the name fraterna we include the 

 beautiful dark brown or blackish variety," &c. There is no doubt that 

 vars. frdterna, Tr., and fraterna, Gn. are respectively the females and 

 males of the same variety, the extreme dark forms of his var. A being 

 nearly always females, the dark form with paler hind wings being males. 

 Fraterna occurs sparingly in all localities with the type. From 1881 to 

 1883, I bred a large number of arundinis from the neighbourhood of 

 Higham, Kent ; not more than one in thirty were fraterna, and these 

 always females. In 1884, I collected a few pupas on the marshes a few 

 miles further down the river Thames, and out of some 30 insects bred, 

 I got about twenty dark males, two very dark females, the remainder 

 being typical. Hiibner (fig. 437), under the name of typhce, figures a male 

 of this variety. His figure is of an unicolorous reddish brown, with 

 black nervures, hind wings ochreous with dark hind margin, dusky 

 nervures, and distinct lunule. 



