NOCTUA DAHLIT. 39 



longitudinal side-band in agreeable contrast to the 

 back ; the subspiracular stripe is pale greyish, like 

 the ventral surface, and only to be distinguished from 

 it by its upper and lower edges being a little paler 

 than the rest. 



The head is rather pale brown ; the second segment 

 has on the back a darker brown velvety patch or plate, 

 rounded behind and margined in front with still 

 darker brown. The tubercular dots are black, rather 

 small, but rendered conspicuously distinct both on 

 the back and sides by a small circle of pale ground 

 colour surrounding each of them ; the spiracles also 

 are black. 



The winter of 1868-69 being of a mild charac- 

 ter, and the food-plants easily obtainable, about 

 sixty of these larvse continued feeding, and reached 

 their full growth before the end of 1868 ; the most 

 advanced spun up between dock leaves on November 

 14th, and others quickly followed ; somewhat to my 

 surprise they refused to enter the earth, but, on 

 being supplied with moss, for the most part hid 

 themselves in that, constructing very slight cocoons. 



The pupa is quite of the ordinary Noclua form ; 

 at first it is a pale greenish colour, and changes in 

 a couple of days to brown, and finally to dark brown, 

 and is very slightly attached by the tail to a thread of 

 its cocoon. This portion of the brood, having all 

 become pupas by the end of December, did not remain 

 long in that state, but began to appear as moths as 

 early as January 19th, 1869, and so on at intervals, 

 until April 29th, by which time I had bred twenty-six 

 S and twenty-seven ? ; however, a large proportion 

 of them were more or less crippled in their wings, and 

 very dingy in colour, though some curious varieties oc- 

 curred ; but, as a whole, they were not fine examples. 



The remainder of the brood meantime had hyber- 

 nated, some of them no more than two lines in length, 

 others nearly half an inch, and many of them died off 

 during the winter ; but on the approach of April the 



