INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



British Museum material on which the remark was based, show that 

 of a whole row thus named, only seven specimens are straminea and 

 not one of these came from America. I cannot imagine straminea 

 and pollens being considered identical, and still less do I follow that 

 the only reason for making them separate is that they do not " come 

 from extra European localities " (What a condition the extra-European 

 species must be in if they are named on these lines !), whilst we notice 

 also that the only differences are stated to be " the generally more 

 prominent pale longitudinal streak above the median vein of the 

 primaries " and " the better-defined black markings," when, as a 

 matter of fact, it is difficult to find a point of similarity, the thoracic 

 crest in straminea, the differently shaped wings, the sexual variation 

 in the hind wings, development of the pale nervures &c., all pointing 

 to complete distinctness, and the final reason as given by Mr. Butler 

 for keeping them distinct is the best of all : Mr. Butler " has not bred 

 both from the egg." I wonder if he has bred either, or any other 

 NOCTUA. And all this muddle about two species which swarm on the 

 Plumstead marshes in the S.E. district of London, only a few miles as 

 the crow flies from the Museum, and which have different larvae feed- 

 ing at different times in different ways on different food plants. 

 Truly this is a strange paragraph. 



Mr. Butler further writes : " I cannot see any reason for distin- 

 guishing Hydrceda * and HelotropJia from this genus (Celcena). Celcena is 

 very close to Mamestra, so much so that I find M. stricta (== cinnabarina) 

 and M. olivacea (which looks like a black form of the same thing) un- 

 doubtedly belong to Celcena and are closely allied to C. renigera " etc. ; 

 and again " Celcena appears to be a fairly natural group, but the 

 structural distinctions between it and Mamestra are not apparent on the 

 surface " (< Trans. Ent. Soc. of London,' 1890, p. 676). I do not con- 

 sider Mr. Butler's statement here as worth anything, as he owns to 

 confounding Miana strigilis with the American M. stricta, but after 

 allowing " Celcena to be a fairly natural group " and maintaining it as 

 a distinct genus (I.e. p. 676) and referring a species of HelotropJia 

 leucostigma io Celcena (I.e. p. 677), it is rather strange to find that he 

 refers his own Icevis (Butler, ' Trans. Ent. Soc. London,' 1881, p. 181), 

 which is a typical male leucostigma, to Cerastis ; true (I.e. 1890, p. 677) 

 he recognises his blunder, but like Professor Smith (' Entorn.' xxv, 

 p. 105) I should like to know on what characters Mr. Butler founds 

 his genera, and why a species is Cerastis one time and Celcena another. 

 It would also be interesting to know why the American Helotropha 

 reniformis, Grote, a species either identical or so closely allied to our 

 leucostigma that it is really indistinguishable, should be placed many 

 drawers away from the typical series of the species in the cabinet in 

 the British Museum, and labelled as a Mamestra. Truly such methods 

 are quite beyond my comprehension. 



The connection between Gortijna, Celcena and Xanthia is very 

 forcibly put by Mr. Butler. He writes : " Judging from the perfect 

 insects only, this genus seems chiefly to differ from Celcena in the 

 greater tendency of the species to become greasy, although many 



*Not Hydrceda as we know it, but one of Mr. Butler's own imagination 

 He refers our Hydrwcice micacet and petasitis to Gortyna (vide 'Trans. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond.,' 1890, p. 678). 



