VARIETIES OF NOOTT^E 



point on the interior side, which gives it the appearance of the point 

 of a black arrow. There are 5 such points on the costal margin all 

 turned towards the base, two of these are rather long, white below but 

 black at the point whilst the other 3 are quite white and much 

 smaller. Below the above mentioned small circular spot lies still a 

 longish black spot, which touches the 2nd transverse line and forms, 

 though very indistinctly, a Latin Y or 2 pronged fork. Yet this mark 

 is not very perceptible. The moth is better known by the point- 

 shaped marks described above. The ground colour is darker in 

 some, lighter in others. Hind wings are white with brown veins, 

 black-brown towards the outer margin, and have a white fringe. 

 This moth does not belong to the NOCTU^E, but to the BOMBVCES. The 

 antennas of the male are noted for being not entirely hairy, but smooth at 

 the tips. The moth is of the same size as Ph. atriplicis, but the 

 fore wings are rather small" (' Naturf orscher ', ix., 14). Borkhausen 

 describes it under the name of suffusa, as also do Fabricius and many 

 other authors. The great character of the species is the spine-shaped 

 mark on the outer side of the reniform. The only other species in 

 which I have noticed this development are Agrotis vestigial**, in which 

 it is common, and occasional varieties of A. exclamationis and A. tritici. 

 The species is sexually dimorphic, the female having the central and 

 basal areas of the fore wings much darker than the males, and I have 

 a ? specimen in which the outer pale area is white instead of 

 ochreous. The hind wings of the females, too, are darker than those 

 of the males. There are sometimes two, sometimes three, wedge-shaped 

 spots opposite the spine-like processes from the reniform, but many 

 specimens show an almost complete transverse row of these, although 

 many are in a more or less undeveloped state. Haworth describes the 

 male as " fpiniferus" the female as " su/usa" Butler in his ' Synonymic 

 notes on the earlier genera of Noctuites,' makes a hopeless muddle of 

 the synonymy of A. saucia and A. ypsilon*, which he calls the same 

 species, and the two vars. he mentions as belonging to the latter, 

 really belong to the former (vide. ' Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond.' 1889, p. 380). 

 Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell writes concerning these varieties : " The 

 following are probably vars. of A. saucia, stictica, Blanch., punctulata, 

 Blanch., impacta, Walk, and athiops, Phil." (in litt.} By reference to 

 the Museum types, I find that stictica and impacta certainly are. 



a. var. annexa, St. Stephens' annexa is a small variety of 

 ypsilon, but is probably not identical with that of Treitschke. 

 Stephens' description is as follows : The fore wings are of a pale 

 brown colour ; fore margin and apex pale ; the hind portion of the 

 wing dark, and the stigmata united by a black dash ; there are numer- 

 ous short, transverse, dark shadings across the costal part of the wing, 

 and other irregular ones between the base and the stigmata, beyond 

 which is a row of dark spear-shaped dashes and a row of dark points 

 along the apical margin of the wing. The hind wings white, with 

 the outer and anal edge brownish, and a slender dusky apical margin " 

 (Humphrey and Westwood's ' British Moths,' p. 117). Guenee con- 

 siders Stephens' annexa (' Illustrations' &c., ii., p. 117) as synonymous 



*Mr. Butler has apparently acted on G-uenee's suggestion (' Noctuelles', v., 

 p. 271) and used Peridroma, Hb. for the genus, but saucia is the type of this 

 genus, not ypsilon = suffusa. 



