224 -March, 



without a history. Haworth described. this species as British, although 

 he had himself seen none but German specimens; he says: "Mr. 

 Donovan informs me that he took it in Wales." It was figured by 

 Curtis, and also by Noel Humphreys ; Professor Westwood stating 

 (Brit. Moths, p. 281) that it "was formerly taken in some numbers 

 on Salisbury Plain." For the same reason it was described by Mr. 

 Stainton in the " Manual ;" but it was placed by Mr. Doubleday in 

 his last list among reputed British species. Probably Mr. Burney's 

 is one of the original specimens, wherever they were obtained from : 

 we have no recent record of its occurrence in this country, except a 

 statement in "Entomologist" for February, 1889, that a specimen oc- 

 curred in Ireland in 1887. 



A third specimen cost me a great deal of research, and the only 

 conclusion at which I could arrive was that it had been made to do 

 duty as Cloantha perspicillaris, to which it bears a faint resemblance. 

 But Mr. Burney found, lying loose in the drawer, an old label, 

 " subgothica^ and it proved that this specimen was really a type of the 

 Agrotis subgothica, which was recorded as British by Stephens. An 

 insect under this name was described by Haworth (p. 224), and figured 

 by Humphreys (pi. 24, fig. 1), but Mr. Doubleday pointed out (Zool., 

 1847, p. 1720) that Haworth's insect was only a variety of Agrotis 

 tritici (this is certainly the case in Humphreys' figure), and he goes on 

 to say: "The species described and figured in (Stephens') 'Illustra- 

 tions,' p. 126, pi. 22, fig. 3, is American. I have traced all the specimens 

 which I have seen of this species in collections of British Lepidoptera 

 to one source, and, I believe, the gentleman who distributed them in- 

 advertently mixed a number of North American insects with his British 

 ones. I received from him as British a Bombyx, which my brother took 

 in Florida, and Mr. Benjamin Standish possesses two Bombyces, one a 

 Centra, the other, perhaps, a Notoclonta, from the same entomologist, 

 which were sent to him as British, whereas, both are well-known 

 North American insects." Agrotis subgothica does not appear in the 

 European lists, and, doubtless, Mr. Burner's specimen (which is not 

 a var. of tritici) may be one of the North American specimens in 

 question. It is in fair condition, but not set any better than the 

 JPlusia. The same may be said of a Gonepteryx Cleopatra and Acontia 

 Solaris, var. lucida, both very old, and having no indication about them 

 of the continental method of " flat " setting. But they are without 

 label or history, aud their origin is " lost in the mists of antiquity." 



But with these were some specimens the history of which is 

 known, and the genuineness of which appears to be indisputable. 



