48 B.YDRMC1A NICTITANS. 



HYDRfflCIA NICTITANS. 



Plate LXII, fig. 2. 



My first acquaintance with the larva was in August, 

 1862, when Mr. Hydes, of Sheffield, sent me six full- 

 grown examples, reported to have fed on some kind of 

 grass ; but as I could not then obtain any more precise 

 knowledge of their habits, I contented myself with a 

 figure from one of them, and that figure soon proved 

 very serviceable in protecting me from an error, when 

 a flower-head of Iris pseudacorus, with a larva of 

 nictitans placed in it, was sent to me as that of Apamea 

 fibrosa — a larva which in all the subsequent years has 

 not yet been forthcoming ! 



However, sixteen years later, by a mere chance I 

 was able to improve my acquaintance with nictitans, 

 for on the 7th June, 1878, I happened to pick up a 

 small stone that rested on a very little tuft of Poa 

 maritima in gravelly soil, near a salt-water course, and 

 found I had torn away with the stone a silken covering 

 from a very young Noctua larva, apparently unknown 

 to me, which I brought home as a prize to be ca.ref ully 

 tended, watched, and figured. It soon moulted, and 

 my interest in it increasing, I again visited the spot 

 in about a week, when I found three rather larger 

 examples, and again two more of them on the 20th 

 June, while getting fresh tufts of the food-plant ; and 

 in the same way subsequently two others. The larvse, 

 when found, varied in length from a quarter of an inch 

 to an inch, and it was only when approaching their 

 last moult that I could suspect what species they were, 

 though when they were nearly full grown my previous 

 suspicion ripened into certainty of their identity, 

 which in August following was confirmed when I bred 

 the eight moths, comprising the usual sexual varieties 

 of colouring, from the 4th to the 20th of the month. 



The habit of this larva is to feed on the bleached 



