THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



117 



bus posticis ciliisque pallidis striga medio macularuni obscurarum.'" I 

 consider this a good description of the insect we get. Haworth then goes 

 on, " Caput inter antennas album." I have a long series (about eighty) and 

 this statement of Haworth' s is very noticeable if one tilts the drawer ; turns 

 it round with the insect towards you, and looks down the series from top to 

 bottom. The " head " is " between the antennae " decidedly " white." 

 Haworth then goes on, " Lingua et palpi Noctuarum potius quam Bomby- 

 cum," of which, I suppose, its position in our classification is a sufficient 

 proof. Comparing it with lutescens, a variety of Acosmetia caliginosa, 

 Haworth goes on to say : — "Corpus paulo gracilius quam in ultimo {lutes- 

 cens) et alee magis oblongse." Both lutescens and rufa are slender bodied 

 Noctuse, and were formerly, by Stephens and other old British authors, 

 classified near each other, and in Humphrey and Westwood's " British 

 Moths " are figured on the same plate. Is not rufa rather more slender 

 bodied than lutescens, and are the wings not more lengthened ? 



I would ask Messrs. Eob'son and Gardner why they write rufa, Haw. ? 

 What does the (f ? " mean, and why is Treitschke's much later name adopted 

 by them rather than Haworth's earlier one ? The above description is taken 

 from Haworth's " Lepidoptera Brittanica," p. 260. The name " rufa " is a 

 British name, has been in constant use since 1803 (the date of publication 

 of Lep. Brit.) by British authors ; Why should we change it for a German 

 name published twenty years later ? 



All our early British authors Stephens, Wood, &c, grouped Caenolia rufa 

 in the same genus {Acosmetia) as Acosmetia ealigosma, the genus now con- 

 taining only the latter species. In Humphrey and Westwood's " British 

 Moths," plate 54., lutescens, caliginosa, rufa, and its var. lineola, and arcuosa 

 are figured as the species in the genus Acosmetia. I think this is pretty 

 strong prima facia evidence that there is something tangible in the arrange- 

 ment, and that the authors succeeding Haworth and who followed him in his 

 arrangement, had no doubt, and I really fail to see how they could have, 

 about what Haworth meant by rufa. I know Guenee writes rufa, Haw. ? 

 as a synonym of Treitschke's despecta, but then, he constantly in his works 

 confesses his ignorance of British species. 



Westcombe Park, S.E. 



[Mr. Tutt must not have read the introduction to the list put forth by Mr. Gardner and 

 myself. It professes to contain — 



" i st. The name of each species in ordinary use in Britain, and the authority for it." 



The Entomologist list notwithstanding, I expect nine out of ten of British ento- 

 mologists still call the species Nonagria despecta. It is so called in " Stainton's Man- 

 ual," the best book for a beginner ever published. In Doubleday's list it is called 

 Despecta, and though Staudinger's catalogue, calling it Rufa, Haw., was published in 

 1871, Mr. Doubleday, in his Supplement of 1873, did not accept the change. Not 



