﻿34 t Jal y. 



Thripticus bellus ; correction of an error. — In xny notes on this species in last 

 number (p. 2), an important omission occurred. Instead of " third and fourth 

 longitudinal veins totally obliterated," should be " third and fourth longitudinal 

 veins almost perfectly parallel, sixth totally obliterated." — G. H. Vekrall, Denmark 

 Hill, London, 6th June, 1869. 



On the Noctua extrema of Hubner. — Last summer when I met Dr. Staudinger 

 in Vienna, he was on his way to Pesth, a locality I had some thoughts of visiting 

 myself, but my friend, Dr. C. A. Dohrn, of Stettin, dissuaded me. Unfortunately, 

 a Coleopterist is not a good guide for a Lepidopterist, and I found out afterwards I 

 had made a great mistake in not going to Pesth, and have resolved to be wiser next 

 time. 



After Dr. Staudinger had been to Pesth, I saw him both at Prague on his way 

 home and again at Dresden after he had reached home, and he was very full of what 

 he had seen at Pesth — the National Museum there containing the original collections 

 of Ochsenheimer and Treitschke. The former had been at first placed on the 

 ground floor, with this unfortunate result that in 1838, on the occasion of an un- 

 usual flood, it was for nearly two days under water ! However, Dr. Staudinger 

 assured me there were many interesting things to be seen in both collections, and 

 that he had made several notes with reference to the synonymy of some obscure 

 species, and that he would shortly publish an article on the extrema of Hubner. 

 This article, which I have been anxiously expecting for nearly a twelvemonth, has 

 appeared in the first portion of the Stettin. Entomologische Zeitung for 1869, at p. 

 85 (though omitted in the list of contents of that number). As I apprehend this 

 may interest many English readers, I append a translation of the article. 



" Tapinostola extrema, Hb., fig 412. 



" That we have had this somewhat puzzling species standing in our collections 

 under another name had long been tolerably evident to me. Hubner's figure 412 

 must, at any rate, have been made from an abnormal specimen, since a perfectly 

 white Noctua with black cilia to the anterior wings has probably never been found. 

 It was just possible that the English Noctua Bondii might be the true extrema of 

 Hubner ; since that species in the coloration and spots of the anterior wings agrees 

 very fairly with Hubner's figure, and sometimes shows even a dark shade before 

 the cilia, which the colourer might by mistake have transferred to the pale cilia 

 themselves. But since, according to Treitschke, v. ii., p. 315, Hubner's extrema 

 has lately been added to nearly all the larger collections from the neighbourhoods 

 of the Rhine and the Main, and Bondii has hitherto only been taken in the South 

 of England and on Mount Parnassus, it became highly improbable, independently of 

 its slighter form, that it could be the extrema of Hubner. According to this state- 

 ment made by Treitschke it was evident that this extrema must be a species 

 occurring with us in Germany, and probably existing in our larger collections. 



Now Guenee has in the 1st volume of his Noctum at p. 103, described a new 

 species from England, which in my catalogue of 1861, at p. 46, 1 referred to extrema, 

 Hb., but without assigning any reason for this step, nor at that time indeed could 

 I have done so, so that the union of the two, especially considering Hubner's fig. 

 412, must have appeared very venturesome. Guenee, in good truth, looking at 

 Hubner's figure, could not suspect in it his English species, and therefore desoribed 



