AGEOTIN.f:. 



Subfamily AGROTIN^. 



Proboscis usually well developed, sometimes aborted ; palpi 

 usuallj- short, upturned or porrect ; froiis rounded, often with 

 rounded prominence, sometimes with corneous plate below it, or 

 with corneous processes of various forms ; ej-es naked, sometimes 

 overhung by cilia, in Ala hairy ; antennae usually ciliated, often 

 pectinate or serrate ; head and thorax clothed with hair and scales, 

 when there are usually crests on pro- and metathorax or ridge-like 

 dorsal crest, or clothed with hair only ; tibiae more or less spinose, 

 all the tibiae being sometimes strongly spined, in others the spines 

 are reduced to one between mid and hind spurs of hind tibiae ; 

 abdomen rarely with dorsal crests. Wings usually broad, some- 

 times rather narrow, the termen rounded or erenulate : fore wing 

 with vein 1 a weak, not anastomosing with 1 5 ; 1 c absent ; 2 from 

 middle of cell ; 3 and 5 from near lower angle ; 6 from upper 

 angle ; 9 from 10 anastomosing with 8 to form the areole, 7 from 

 the areole ; 11 free, from the cell. Hind wing with veins 1 a and 5 

 present ; 1 c absent ; 3, 4 from lower angle of cell ; 5 obsolescent 

 from middle of discocellulars ; 6, 7 from upper angle or shortly 

 stalked ; 8 arising free, then bent down and touching cell, then 

 again diverging, in Thyreion siwiui connected with, cell at middle 

 by an oblique bar after diverging. 



Fig. 2. — Larva of Agrotis deraiota. J-. 

 (From HmpsD. 111. Het. ix. pi. 176. fig. 4.) 



Larva smooth, the warts with 1 hair ; all the prologs present ; 

 the 12th somite with dorsal hump. In the Heliotliis group the 

 larvae usually feed on flowers ; in the Agrotis group they often hide 

 in the earth, by day and emerge to feed at night : the perfect 

 insects of the former often flying in the sunshine, whilst the latter 

 are purely nocturnal. 



