48 NOCTUA SOBEINA. 



smallest. The ground colour was reddish or red- 

 brown, slightly mottled with grey ; the dorsal mark- 

 ing was almost linear, widening a little slightly but 

 narrowly lozenge fashion near the end of each segment 

 and having on this widest part a round pale spot of 

 dirty ochreous, the sides much mottled with grey 

 atoms, strongly along the spiracular region. The 

 belly and subspiracular stripe of a paler dirty pinkish- 

 brown ochreous, the latter rather palest ; the tuber- 

 cular dots most minute and black ; spiracles black ; 

 the head shining brownish-ochreous with two black 

 dots in front of each lobe ; ocelli black ; the body 

 soft and velvety ; a slight indication of the usual 

 Noctua-like transverse marking is faintly visible on 

 the twelfth segment and more faintly still on some 

 others ; a round pale spot on the side is beneath each 

 hind dot of the trapezoidals, though less noticeable 

 than that on the dorsal marking. Another variety, 

 figured on the 19th, is of deep brownish-ochreous pink 

 freckled and mottled with grey and pale flesh colour. 

 These three larvse matured rapidly and then entered 

 the peaty soil. (W. B., 1880, Note Book IV, 12.) 



Paohnobia alpina. 



Plate LXXX, fig. 2. 



On the 27th of July, 1878, I received eighty-five 

 good eggs and one infertile of this species, laid within 

 two glass-bottomed boxes, one of which contained ten 

 eggs and the other the remainder, from Mr. E. Gr. Meek. 

 When first laid the eggs were pale yellow and, with 

 only a single exception loose, were all adhering to the 

 paper lining chiefly, just a few being on the glass. 

 When they reached me they had changed colour to a 

 dirty whitish or pale straw ground-colour, having a 

 central blotch at the top of blackish-brown and a little 

 below a broad irregular zone, very ragged-edged, of deep 



