nootua dahlii. 37 



Noctua Dahlii. 

 Plate LXXVII, fig. 3. 



On September 11th, 1868, I had the pleasure to 

 receive from Mr. Gr. B. Longstaff an abundant supply 

 of eggs of this species, that had been obtained from 

 several females in captivity by Mr. Gr. Norman, in 

 Morayshire. 



The eggs were dome-shaped, flattened, and slightly 

 concave beneath, ribbed and reticulated, of a drab 

 colour, with a central zone of brown ; in a few hours 

 after I had them they turned to a brownish-slate 

 colour, and the larvge began to hatch on the 13th 

 September and were all out by the 15th. 



The young larvae were at first a brownish-grey 

 colour, with black heads, and they soon began to eat 

 the green cuticle from either surface of leaves of dock, 

 Eumex crispus and B. pulcher, showing a most decided 

 preference for these plants, though supplied with 

 various other kinds of food. 



After their first moult they became a paler brown, 

 with their minute tubercular blackish dots and hairs 

 distinct ; and by the time they had passed a second 

 moult, they were three-eighths of an inch long, brown 

 on the back with faintly paler dorsal and subdorsal 

 lines, the sides down to the spiracles of a rather 

 darker brown than the back, the ventral surface and 

 subspiracular stripe paler brownish-grey tinged with 

 bluish-grey anteriorly. 



These larvae when about one-third grown were 

 handsomer than at any other period, their colours 

 being then deeper and brighter. The full-grown larva 

 is from one and three-eighths to one and half an inch 

 in length, longer perhaps when fully stretched out, 

 and then it also tapers from the sixth segment to the 

 head, which is narrower than the second segment ; 

 the thirteenth also tapers and slopes down from the 



