100 VARIETIES OF NOCTTLE! 



their colour is bluish-grey in some specimens, prettily varied with 

 darker and lighter grey in others, the colour being very confused and 

 almost uniform : there is, however, almost invariably at the middle of 

 the base, a curved black line which bifurcates at the extremity, and a 

 second short, but decided black line beneath the reniform spot, and 

 between this and the hind margin are a pair of white dots placed 

 transversely ; the discoidal spots are more or less distinct, always par- 

 taking of the colour of the general area : the hind wings are smoky- 

 brown, rather paler at the base ; the fringe is paler and intersected 

 throughout by a median darker line : the head and thorax are of the 

 same colour as the fore wings, the body as the hind wings. The moth 

 appears in September, and has been taken in Sweden and the north of 

 Germany ; a single specimen was reported to have been taken at New 

 Cross, in the ' Entomologist,' vol. iii., p. 203, and almost immedi- 

 ately afterwards, Mr. Cooke, the well-known and energetic naturalist 

 of Oxford Street, received another unnamed among some insects 

 recently collected at Guildford " (' British Moths,' p. 428). Of the oc- 

 currence of this species in Britain, Mr. H. G. Knaggs writes : " Mr. 

 E. Meek has just placed in my hands for identification a very hand- 

 some NOCTUA. It is the Xylina zinckenii of Treitschke, and was taken 

 by an incipient entomologist last September, in the neighbourhood of 

 New Cross " (<Ent. Mo. Mag.,' iii., p. 163); Of this specimen Mr. E. 

 Newman writes : " A single specimen of this insect, the Noctua lamda 

 of Fabricius (' Mantissa Ins.' p. 174, No. 257), is reported to have been 

 taken by Mr. Harrington, on the trunk of a willow tree near New 

 Cross, on the 30th of September last ; but in my correspondence with 

 Mr. Doubleday, I find that eminent lepidopterist has not seen the 

 insect, so some doubt must attach to the name for the present. 

 Herrioh-Schaffer gives two very beautiful figures of the species (' Noc- 

 tuides,' tab. 28, figs. 135-136), but both this author (< Schmetterlinge 

 von Europa, ii., 305) and Guenee (' Noctuelites,' vi., p. 119) give it the 

 name of zinckenii, and sink the Fabrician name of lamda as a synonym, 

 the last named entomologist thinking it ' unlikely that Fabricius 

 should have known a species that must have been rare in his time.' 

 The fore wings are bluish-grey, variegated with both lighter and 

 darker markings, the ground colour being lighter than in X. conformis, 

 and the dark markings being thus rendered more conspicuous. It is 

 also smaller than X. conformis. Nothing is known of its larva or life- 

 history, except that it occurs as far north as Sweden, and also in the 

 North of Germany, both in autumn and spring ; so that it must either 

 hybernate in the perfect state, or pass through two generations in the 

 year " (< Entomologist,' vol. iii., pp. 203-204). Mr. E. Newman then 

 wrote : " No sooner do we hear of a specimen of this novelty occurring 

 at New Cross, than a second has been taken at Guildford : it was sent 

 up unnamed to Mr. Cooke, of Oxford Street " (< Entomologist,' vol. iii., 

 p. 227) ; whilst the Hon. Spencer Canning (apparently the captor of 

 this second specimen) writes : " In the note I sent you some time ago, 

 I mentioned having caught a NOCTUA of which I had not then found out 

 the name. I took it to an entomologist, and he wrote back that it was 

 the new species, Xylina zinckenii. It was taken at sugar on a young elm 

 tree, in the month of October, between Dorking and Guildford " (' Ent. 

 Mo. Mag./ iii., p. 235). Mr. J. Moore also writes : " I havo to re- 



