IN SECT A. 
183 
tlie orbicular and reniform marks, which are black and very large. 
Hindwings with a dark-brown lunule in the disk, and with a very 
broad dark-brown marginal band ; fringe cinereous. Length of the 
body seven lines ; expansion of the forewings eighteen lines. It is 
easily recognised by its brick-red colour, with brown and white 
markings, and dark-brown silky underwings. I be caterpillar is of 
an opaque green, or light brown, or flesh colour, marked with very 
fine longitudinal lines, and very slightly hairy ; it measures about an 
inch and a quarter in length, and usually feeds upon geraniums and 
other garden plants on the high land. The chrysalis is of a light 
mahogany colour. 
Farm. Noctuidce. 
Agrotis, Ochs. 
A. obliviosa, Walk. — This Moth inhabits also South Africa, but 
it almost seems to be a native of the Island. It is of a brown colour, 
measuring about three-quarters of an inch in length ; the outer wings 
are marked transversely, with one or two dark-brown waved lines 
and several large spots ; the under wings much resemble white silk ; 
the legs are darlc-brown spotted with white. Its larva is the 
common blue or black garden grub, which is such a pest to farmers 
and gardeners. It lives in the soil, and destroys whole fields 
of vegetation. When changing to the chrysalis (which is of a light 
amber colour) it envelopes itself in a coating of earth, the exterior 
of which somewhat resembles a small walnut, the cavity inside being 
spacious and perfectly smooth. General Beatson made a series of 
careful experiments with these grubs, which he found to be entiiely 
vegetable feeders, so that the best mode of ridding the land of them 
is to starve them by a clean fallow during the warm dry weather. 
These exceedingly troublesome creatures are not, however, without 
their natural enemies, as I discovered after having kept several of them 
in a box for a week. They shrivelled away, and a small brown ovule 
forced its way through the skin from the inside of each, which, in 
about three weeks, developed into a species of fly somewhat like the 
common house fly. 
*A. pallidula, Walk.— Of this native, Mr. Walker gives the fol- 
lowing description : — “Female pale fawn colour. Body whitish 
beneath. Antennae slender. Palpi obliquely ascending, not rising 
to the height of the vertex, densely clothed with short hairs ; third 
