34 VARIETIES OF NOOTF^G 



3rd July, in a moist meadow overgrown with rushes ; they flew in the 

 forenoon, and when I revisited the meadow a second time, I found 

 them flying readily towards evening, and settling deep in the tufts of 

 rushes, with the head downwards. At Messina I again observed this 

 species, in the second half of August, where they were flying in the 

 grass, and amongst Nepeta calamintha, on the heights of Castellaccio. 

 One beautiful specimen I took from a small Asilus which had already 

 killed it. Phisia ni was, however, most plentiful on the border of a 

 road near Naples, on the 20th of August ; they were on this day par- 

 ticularly shy, more like gamma, and whenever I approached them they 

 went over a wall into a vineyard. I also noticed this species in the 

 Campagna to the South of Rome, on the 28th August. This species, 

 at any rate, seems no rarity in the southern part of Italy. Its most 

 characteristic markings are furnished by the subterminal line of the 

 anterior wings and the central markings ; the former shows between 

 the second and third branches of the median vein, and between the last 

 branches of the sub-dorsal vein two acute angles, which are open to- 

 wards the base, and filled with black-brown, and it always bears on 

 its anterior edge, in the interval between the branches of the sub-costal 

 vein and between the first and second branches of the median vein, short 

 black-brown longitudinal streaks. The central marking is not silvery, 

 but simply white with a faint gloss, and at the part which hangs on 

 to the median nervure it is filled up with pale grey ; the free part is 

 oval, and more or less distinctly separated. It is very remarkable, but, 

 in three male specimens, this part is quite distinctly separated on the 

 left wing, but not on the right, on the other hand, in one female the 

 contrary takes place, and in no one specimen is there this separation 

 on both wings. The male is distinguished from every other species 

 of Plusia, except cArcumscripta, by the abdomen. On each side of the 

 fifth segment is a long, almost straight, pale reddish tuft of hairs, 

 which projects but little from the abdomen, but strikes the eye very 

 readily, so that one cannot help wondering how it was not mentioned 

 by Treitschke : below this tuft on the 6th segment is a longer and 

 thinner tuft, of which the tips of the hairs are black ; usually these 

 black tufts are concealed in the anal tuft, but may be easily fished out 

 with the setting-needle. As I had not observed these appendages, 

 the object of which I am at a loss to conceive, in the fresh specimens, 

 I am not confident that they are really attached to the above named 

 segments. Probably other species possess this character in the male 

 sex, and it might furnish a clue to a more natural grouping of the 

 species. Plusia danbei, with which I am not personally acquainted, 

 comes very near to P. ni according to Freyer's figure (' N. Beit.,' iii., 

 p. 90 ; Tab. 256, fig. 1) ; on the anterior wings it shews the same 

 markings of the subterminal line, but it wants the lower oval part of 

 the Ptaa-mark, and, on the other hand, has the peculiar reniform 

 stigma as in P. gamma. Boisduval says of P. danbei (' Index,' p. 159), 

 that it is smaller than ni ; but according to Freyer, it is almost larger 

 than gamma " (< Ent. Mo. Mag.,' vol. vi., pp. 12-13). 



Of the recent capture of Plusia ni in Britain, Mr. C. Gr. Barrett 

 writes : " I have recently had the pleasure of examining a very rare 

 British moth, a genuine specimen of Plusia ni, Hb. I found it among 

 some NOCTU^E sent for examination by Major Partridge, of The Castle, 



