Insects. 



8383 



inclining to yellow, with feeble silky lustre. The cilia up to the 

 divisional line are uniformly dark, beyond it whitish and at the anal 

 angle gray. The posterior wings and their cilia are pale fuscous. 

 I took some specimens in May on the edges of woods. 



Group XITI. 

 31. N. Myrtillella, Stt. 



Capillis rufo-ferrugineis, antennarum conchula flavido-alba ; alis 

 anterioribus fusco-nigris, caeruleo tinctis, grossiuscule squamatis, 

 fascia subobliqua tenui albida, pone medium, ciliis griseis, basi 

 squamis fusco-caeruleis regularibus; tarsis postice griseis. Exp. 

 al. 2£ lin. ; (lj lin.) 



Stainton, Ann. 1858 ; Man. ii. 434. 



?N. fagella, H.-S. v. 354, 1115. 



N. Fagi, Freij, Tin. 384. Linn. Ent. xi. 412, 33. 



This species is extremely closely allied to N. Salicis and its allies, 

 and can scarcely be distinguloLed by constant characters. On the 

 whole it is rather smaller than N. Salicis (I have some specimens only 

 one line and a half in expanse) ; the anterior wings have the same 

 ground colour and the same blue gloss, but are not so inclined to yel- 

 lowish as is generally the case in N. Salicis, since the individual 

 scales have not their bases yellowish, as in that species, but are more 

 uniformly dark. The fascia is not composed of two opposite spots ; 

 it is narrow, of nearly uniform width, evidently less oblique, not so 

 yellow, but purer white, with a faint silky lustre. The dark scales at 

 the base of the cilia lie more regularly than those in N. Salicis and 

 N. floslactella, and form by their ends a regular, more strongly curved 

 divisional line, whereas in N. Salicis the scales are more irregularly 

 placed, being rather abruptly truncate posteriorly, and some project 

 into the outer half of the cilia. Beyond this line the cilia are of a 

 purer pale gray, without the yellowish colouring round the apex of the 

 wing, as in N. Salicis ; at the anal angle and at the inner margin they 

 are gray. The frontal tuft is bright rusty yellow ; in N. Salicis it is 

 more of a brownish ochreous ; otherwise in both species the eye-caps 

 and cervical tuft are yellowish white, the longer antennae are blackish, 

 the legs gray, the hinder tibiae spotted w T ith pale in the middle and at 

 the end, the posterior tarsi are pale gray. 



Since, moreover, N. Salicis and N. Myrtillella both vary to some 

 extent in the above-given distinctive characters, the certain recognition 

 of specimens which have not been bred is extremely difficult; indeed, 



