100 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Vol. vi. 



Noctua hospitalis Grote. 



Of this species I knew only the female type from the Hill collection 

 in 1890. Mr. Grote was inclined in 1886 to consider this a form of 

 perconflua, but as I pointed out, it is much nearer to the European 

 brunnea. Two years ago Dr. Ottolengui took a perfect male at Man- 

 chester, N. H., which he kindly gave me, and recently I saw a specimen 

 in the Strecker collection, labelled simply " N. Y." 



The latter specimen was named brunnea and, compared with Euro- 

 pean examples in the same collection, no superficial differences were ap- 

 parent. In view of what has appeared in other instances — notably that 

 of baja — it would be unsafe to cite the two as identical ; hence I present 

 a picture of the male genitalia (Plate VII, fig. 9) for comparison with 

 those of the European brunnea by any one with specimens of the latter 

 at hand. 



Noctua rub if era Grt. 



There has been much confusion in collections between rubifera and 

 perconflua, and even labels in Mr. Grote's handwriting are not always 

 correctly applied. When the western forms were added, leading to 

 rosaria, the confusion became yet greater and there seemed to be almost 

 no line of division. Esurialis Grote, described from Washington I re- 

 ferred from a comparison of types in 1 891 as a probable geographical 

 race of perconflua. 



Within the last five years I have received material in this group 

 from all the Pacific Coast States, from Vancouver, from British Colum- 

 bia, from Manitoba and from Calgary, and the result of a renewed 

 study has been the conclusion that there are more species than has been 

 realized, and that even in the East two species have been confused under 

 the name rubifera. Fortunately Mr. Grote gives us a figure of his spe- 

 cies (Can. Ent., VII, pi. I, f. 14), and of this type I have four examples 

 from Orono, Me., Sharon Springs and the Adirondack Mountains, New 

 York. 



The sexual characters of the two males agree, and are not those fig- 

 ured by me on pi. IV, f. 37, Bull. 44 U. S. Nat. Museum. They are 

 represented on the accompanying Plate VII, fig. 2. This species has the 

 primaries rather narrow, especially in the male, the apex almost rect- 

 angular, outer margin evenly curved and the inner margin nearly 

 straight. None of the ornamentation is at all contrasting, yet in most 

 specimens a diffuse darker median shade is traceable. 



