,pp on i>^ni 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. XXIV.] MARCH, 1891. [No. 334. 



NOTE ON AGROTIS SUBGOTHICA, Haw. 

 By J. Jenner Weir, F.L.S., &e. 



An insect is figured under the above name in Stephens's 

 111. Br. Ent., Haust. II., 126, pi. xxii. f. 3 (1829), and again by 

 Wood, Ind. Ent. 36, pi. ix. f. 149 (1839). Eennie very imper- 

 fectly describes it in his Cons. Butt, and Moths (1832), and 

 says that it is "scarce; Norfolk, near London, and Devon." 

 Doubleday's Syn. List Brit. Lep. (1850), p. 12, gives the name 

 under the head of " Eeputed British Noctuse. ' Stainton, in his 

 Man. Br. Butt, and Moths (1857), does not mention the name; 

 nor does Newman advert to it in his 111. Nat. Hist. Brit. Moths 

 (1869), except as a variety of A. tritici. Lastly, the name does 

 not appear in South's Syn. List Br. Lep. (1884). 



So completely has the name of the insect been lost sight of 

 that, during my intercourse with British entomologists for more 

 than half a century, I cannot recollect that I ever heard it 

 mentioned as having been taken in England. 



Haworth's name of the species seems to have migrated to 

 America, but whether the common species, known under that 

 name there, is that figured by Stephens is doubtful. I find that my 

 excellent friend Prof. Riley, in his ' First Annual Report on the 

 Noxious, Beneficial, and other Insects of the State of Missouri' 

 (1869), p. 82, gives a figure of the moth (fig. 29, a, b), and appends 

 Haworth's description, and states that Dr. Fitch concludes that 

 it is an American insect, the eggs or larvae of which have been 

 accidentally carried to England. Since this decision Haworth's 

 name has been generally applied to the American species, which 

 is said to be synonymous with Walker's Feltia ducens, Lep. Het. 

 ix. p. 203, n. 1 (1856). 



Prof. Riley, in the same Report adverted to above, pp. 82, 83, 

 gives an account of another Agrotis as the A. jaculifera, of which 



ENTOM. MARCH, 1891. F 



