106 
Observations on the various Insects 
them quite so, I suppose of Noctua pronuha."* In another place 
he says, " The crub of this moth is that yeUowish-brown, tou^h- 
skinned grubj which every gardener has seen repeatedly on and 
just inider the wcry surface of the soil, where it eats through the 
collar or stem of the young cabbage-plants, &c., and from nume- 
rous observations I have concluded that it prefers the cruciferous 
plants of any or cverv genus to the plants of other natural orders, 
as the Criicifercv have all, in a greater or less degree, a mustard 
flavour. Seven or eight years ago it destroyed, on the farm of 
C. Harrison, Esq., at Bury St. Edmund's, numerous young plants 
of turnips, when possessed of seven or eight leaves, by eating 
through their incij)ient root-stalks or bulbs ; hereupon the plants 
would fall aside and die: they produced the A^. pronuba.'' l 
The two following very destructive species are included by our 
present system in the Genus Agrotis ;\ their larvae appear to be 
very similar, and their economy precisely the same. 
3. Noctua (Agrotis) exclamationis, Linn., the Heart-and-Dart 
moth (fig. G), has received these names from the markings of the 
wings resembling a note of exclamation and a heart and a dart. 
It is of a clay-colour; the horns are like fine bristles, but in the 
male they appear slightly toothed like a comb, most distinctly near 
the base, in consequence of each joint producing a fringe of short 
hairs : the feelers are short and almost Ijlack beneath, with a little 
joint protruding at the apex, and between them is a strong spiral 
tongue ; on the front of the thorax is a transverse black spot ; the 
wings repose in a horizontal position, being then flat, with one of 
the superior lying over the other as in the Great Yellow Under- 
wing ; the superior wings are rather long and narrow, darkest at the 
costal edge, which is spotted with darker and paler marks ; there 
are two waved double lines near the base, and to the second is 
attached an elliptical piceous streak ; above it is a ring with a 
pupil, and beyond this a dark ear-shaped mark ; then follows a 
transverse denticulated line, and nearer the fringed margin a pale 
and very irregular line : the inferior wings are white, excepting 
the upper margin and the nervures, which are brownish : the 
body is a little depressed, dark-brown, lighter at the base; the 
apex obtuse in the male, conical in the female : the six legs are 
long and piceous, the fore-shanks are short, and have an internal 
spine ; the intermediate have a pair of unequal spurs at the apex, 
as well as the hinder, which have likewise another pair at the 
* Gardener's Mag., vol. ix., p. 573. 
t This sentence rather alludes lo the larva of a Tipii/a, I sliould say. 
;j: Gardeners Mag;., vol. ix., p. 501. 
§ Curtis's Brit. Ent., pi. and fol. 1G5; and Guide, Gen. 834, Nos. 11 
and 10. 
