THE BRITISH NOCTILE AND THEIR 

 VARIETIES. 



Class: NOCTlLffi, Linn. 



II. Sub-Class: GENUINE, Gn. 



4. Family : Noctuidce, Gn. 



THIS family contains some of the most interesting genera, so far 

 as variation is concerned, viz. Ayrotia, Tripkcena, and Noctua. 

 Almost all the species in these genera are massed together in one unwieldy 

 genus, Agrotis, in Staudinger's ' Catalog ', subdivided into groups which 

 do not agree in any way, with our genera as used in Britain. Among 

 the Noctuidce we have probably some of the most confusing species in 

 the whole of our NoorttZB. The species in Agrotis are all more or less 

 variable, and in their extreme phases of variation have so many 

 common forms that it seems almost impossible in isolated cases to say 

 to which species certain specimens should be referred. The specific 

 value of A. aquilina is still a moot point, but all other British species 

 appear to be well fixed. We find that certain forms of A. vestigial^ 

 are exceedingly like A. tritici, while specimens of A. tritici are often 

 very much like A. vestigialis ; again certain forms of A. tritici are almost 

 indistinguishable from similar forms of A. cursoria and A. obelisca, and 

 vice versa, but from the great mass of material that has gone through 

 my hands during the last few years, I have little doubt that these 

 three latter species are distinct enough, although very little is as yet 

 known of them by the great bulk of our lepidopterists, and this will 

 continue until our lepidopterists have a much greater number of 

 specimens for comparison than they usually possess. In the genus 

 Agrotis, too, we get certain well-defined groups, which vary much 

 inter se and vary also more or less towards the other groups. The hind 

 wings of this genus are worthy of study, but they present so much 

 variation, that no reliance can be placed on shade, colour, or marking, 

 in determining sex. There is a certain amount of sexual variation 

 which reaches its highest point of divergence in A.puta, A. cinerea, and 

 A. lunigera, and these are joined by species, intermediate between them 

 and those species in which this divergence is less striking. The variation 

 in the markings of the superior wings of some species, passes through 

 almost all grades, from total absence (both pale and dark forms) to 

 bright, strongly-marked specimens, and from extremely pallid speci- 

 mens in many cases, to almost completely melanic forms. I have 

 previously written much about the tritici-cursoria group, see 4 Entom.' 

 vol. xviii., pp. 94-96, pp. 188-189 ; and vol. xxi., pp. 171-176, pp. 

 198-202, but whereas 1 was at first inclined to consider cursoria and 



