9 
INTRODUCTORY. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
Both relatively and absolutely America abounds much more in Noctuids than any part of the An¬ 
cient World. In order to give us an idea of the gigantic number of the species of Noctuids of America, we may 
state the following comparisons. In the United States alone there are more Noctuid species than in the 
whole palearctic part of the Ancient World, as comprehended by Staudixgek in his catalogue, i. e. in the 
whole of Europe, the greatest part of Asia and Northern Africa. While but altegether 500 Noctuids are 
known from the best explored district of the eastern Tropics, i. e. the Island of Ceylon, therefore little more 
than 100 species more than those found in a district of Central Europe of the same size, the number in 
the American Tropics increases astonishingly. But these parts of the continent are still so imperfectly explored 
as to their Noctuid fauna that even approximate calculations are not yet possible to-day. The enormous 
territory of the interior of Brazil, of Peru, Bolivia, Guiana, the south of Venezuela and Colombia have been so 
little explored as to their abundance of Noctuids, that we may truly say our knowledge extends only to 
fractional parts of the actual amount of them. We may therefore assume that in America alone there are 
to be found as many species of Noctuids as there are in the rest of the world. 
Moreover the fauna of the Noctuids varies altogether according to the latitudes. In the extreme 
north we find the holarctic polar fauna in its well-known scarcity. In the moore southern parts of Canada, 
however, at a latitude on which the Central German faunistic character begins to show itself, and where 
in Eastern Asia (for instance in Sachalin or in South Kamtchatka) only quite inferior representatives of 
the family of Noctuids are to be found, there is an abundance in America as no district in Europe attains to, 
or is but rarely encountered in Tropical India. The Central States of the United States, Central Germany and 
Northern Japan show a similarity to one another as to the climate, and yet we find for instance of the genus 
Catocala on the Middle Rhine 8, in Northern Japan 16, but in each of the North American Central States 
about 50 to 100 forms. Of the Noctuids of the Plusia- group the United States can prove to have more than 
3 times as many species as that shown by the large tropical Island of Ceylon. 
Just as the Noctuids in America show the greatest number of species, they also attain to the largest 
size there. Thysania aygrippina (Erebus strix ) attains at nearly 1 / 4 of a meter the greatest span of all lepi- 
doptera and of almost all the insects. The females of Erebus odora resemble on the wing large bats; they 
reach a span of 15 cm, and the Thysania zenobia common to Venezuela does not fall short very much of 
these gigantic creatures. The flying-power of these lepidoptera must be quite an extraordinary one, for 
the Erebus odora sometimes came flying close to ships which were no more far distant from the European coast, 
and once one specimen was found in Tristan d’Acunha, which is situate nearly midway between Montevideo 
and Cape Town. These insects must therefore be able to traverse on the wing immense oceans. 
It goes without saying that by reason of the great multifariousness of the American Noctuids not much 
can be said of their appearance that would be common to them. The earthy grey species to which belong so 
many European Euxoa, Athetis, Mamestra etc. also take the leading part in the northern districts. The 
closer to the Equator, the more they are varied by bright coloured or dark ribbed species, just as they come 
up in the character of coloration to the eastern Grammesia and Parallelia. Particularly in the deep crevices 
of the so-called Canyons of the Mexican table land, and such as are crossed by the higher situated Llanos 
of Venezuela, numerous numbers of the genus Melipotis are to be found replacing the eastern Cerocala, Achaea, 
Palpanyula, Gram/rnodes etc. In the tropical forest district, especially in Central and South America the Zale 
and Safia (Homoptera) are predominant, which with flat (instead of roof-like) wings, showing the anal half 
of the hindwing, are perched on planks, trunks of trees and stones. They combine with an almost monotonous 
brown colouring a marking closely reminding us of our Boarmia. Furthermore in tropical America a great 
number of Noctuid-species make their appearance in the evening, the abode of which in day-time can barely 
be determined, as they are very rarely roused from the brushwood or are to be seen reposing on a rock or 
tree. These, for instance, are the Acanthodica exactly resembling a splinter of wood, the Calymniodes corre¬ 
sponding to the European Calymnia and the somewhat Agrotis- like Namangana. South of the tropical v ooded 
belt we find again resting in the grass of the Pampas small but finely coloured Tarache and variegated forms 
of the otherwise sombre coloured Monodes. Trunks and particularly the plankings of barbed AA'ire with which 
the pasturages of Argentina are fenced in -are sometimes beset with Laphygma, and it happens that the 
last mentioned Noctuid-species are swept down by the ,,Pampero“ (the gale blowing over the Pampas), carried 
far away and set down in the streets of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo, where in unison with other insects 
taken hold of by the wind they may form a living cover of the pavement. 
The palped Noctuids from among the group of the Deltoids, shovring particularly in the Tropics a rich 
development of forms Avith frequently singular patterns of colouring and highly peculiar deviations in the shape 
of the palps, Avings and legs, are spread over the American countries of every clime. 
We thus come to the conclusion that America is the most important continent to the development 
of the tribe of Noctuids. 
