﻿12 LJ« ne . 



when the true C. Davus occurs in all our peaty moors and meadows. I imagine 

 that in Britain the larva will feed freely on Carex, and it certainly will not die of 

 hunger when supplied with any of the sharp grasses that grow on moors. — Id. 



Observations on Plusia Ni (by Professor ZellerJ, translated from the Isis, 1847, 

 p. 449. — As Treitschke correctly observes, Plusia Ni, when on the wing, has a 

 great resemblance to P. Gamma, and it requires very sharp powers of observation 

 to recognise the buzzing Noctua, by its grey colour, as Plusia Ni. Near Syracuse, 

 on the 30th May, I took a wasted male in a fallow-field, where, when started up, 

 it settled again to sleep on a vine-leaf, instead of buzzing at flowers, as is usual. 

 Gamma sometimes settles again in the same way, and, indeed, I had almost passed 

 this specimen for Gamma. In the neighbourhood of Catania I found specimens of 

 the second brood, on the 3rd of July, in a moist meadow overgrown with rushes ; 

 they flew in the forenoon, and when I revisited the meadow a second time, I found 

 them flying readily towards evening, and settling deep in the tufts of rushes, with 

 the head downwards. At Messina I again observed this species, in the second half 

 of August, where they were flying in the dry grass, and amongst Nepeta calamintha, 

 on the heights of Castellaccio. One beautiful specimen I took from a small Asilus, 

 which had already killed it. 



Plusia Ni was, however, most plentiful on the border of a road near Naples, 

 on the 20th of August ; they were on this day particularly shy, more like Gamma, 

 and whenever I approached them they went over a wall into a vineyard. I also 

 noticed this species in the Campagna to the South of Rome, on the 28th August. 

 This species, at any rate, seems no rarity in the southern part of Italy. 



Its most characteristic markings are furnished by the sub-terminal line of the 

 anterior wings and the central markings : the former shows between the 2nd 

 and 3rd branches of the median vein, and between the last branches of the sub- 

 dorsal vein two acute angles, which are open towards the base, and filled with 

 black-brown, and it always bears on its anterior edge, in the interval between the 

 branches of the sub-costal vein and between the 1st and 2nd branches of the median 

 vein, short black-brown longitudinal streaks. The central marking is not silvery, 

 but simply white with a faint gloss, and at the part which hangs on to the median 

 nervure it is filled up with pale grey ; the free part is oval, and more or less 

 distinctly separated. 



It is very remarkable, but in three male specimens this part is quite distinctly 

 separated on the left wing, but not on the right : on the other hand, in one female 

 the contrary takes place, and in no one specimen is there this separation on both 

 wings. 



The male is distinguished from every other species of Plusia, except circum- 

 scripta, by the abdomen. On each side of the 5th segment is a long, almost 

 straight, pale reddish tuft of hairs, which projects but little from the abdomen, but 

 strikes the eye very readily, so that one cannot help wondering how it was not 

 mentioned by Treitschke : below this tuft on the 6th segment is a longer and 

 thinner tuft, of which the tips of the hairs are black ; usually these black tips are 

 concealed in the anal tuft, but may be easily fished out with the setting-needle. 

 As I had not observed these appendages, the object of which I am at a loss to 

 conceive, in the fresh specimens, I am not confident that they are really attached 



