113 



ON THE SO-CALLED " ERASTEIA'' VENUSTULA 



OF EUEOPE. 



By a. G. Butleb, F.L.S., &c. 



In Lederer's revision of the European Noctuse, which forms 

 the basis of the classification adopted by Staudinger in his Cata- 

 logue, E. venustula is unhesitatingly referred to Erastria. When 

 re-arranging the collection here, I was struck by the dissimilarity 

 from the other forms which this species offered, and, upon exami- 

 nation with an ordinary pocket lens, I at once discovered characters 

 which separate it widely from Erastria. 



Typical species of Erastria (I ignore the Tentamen of Hiibner, 

 the publication of which was never proved, and therefore take 

 E. fasciana, Linn. = fuscula, Schiff., as type) are characterised 

 by a more or less tufted abdomen, although in E. candidula the 

 basal tuft alone remains; by porrected palpi with well-exposed 

 terminal joint, and by the radial of the secondaries being emitted 

 just beyond the third median branch, as in Acontia and all the 

 genera of the later groups of Noctuites. 



Lederer's arrangement is very faulty, inasmuch as the species 

 of his group A, characterized by species not having a tufted 

 abdomen, are not typical ; moreover E. candidula, as already 

 stated, has a tuft on the basal segment of the abdomen, and is 

 also closely related to the North American E. carneola, in which 

 the abdomen is very heavily tufted ; with the exception of E. 

 scitula, which differs in having the second and third median 

 branches of the secondaries emitted from a footstalk, and there- 

 fore is not an Erastria, and E. candidula, which is an Erastria, 

 none of the species even resemble the genus. 



With regard to E. venustula, it has an untufted abdomen, 

 thick upright palpi, with very short terminal joint, and the radial 

 of the secondaries emitted from the centre of the disco-cellular 

 veinlet — a character which at once removes it to the earlier groups 

 of Noctuites. According to Lederer the larva would appear to be 

 a semi-looper, and, if this is so, it would be best to place it at the 

 end of the first section immediately preceding the Eriopida : but 

 I question Lederer's having personally examined the larva, and I 

 should like to know from Mr. Cooper, who has had opportunities 

 of rearing it, whether it at all nearly resembles the larvae of the 

 species with which it has been wrongly associated. 



It now becomes necessary to assign E. venustula to a different 

 genus. 



In his * Verzeichniss,' Hiibner, at p. 254, included the fol- 

 lowing species in his genus TIapalotis : — H.furvula, now referred 

 to Caradrina ; H. lupula and ravula, referred to Bryophila ; H. 

 fuscula, atratula, and candidula, referred to Erastria ; lastly, H. 

 venustula, which, by the process of restriction now adopted for 

 fixing the types of these mixed genera, becomes the type of 



