52 
very noticeable, but in moneta and others it is obvious. The forewings 
are of a golden-grey colour, and have a somewhat netted appearance, 
due to the darker wing-rays, wavy lines and other markings. The 
central spot is of a shiny, golden, or brassy, colour, and in shape like an 
ear, or sometimes like two adjacent small coins (whence the name 
moneta) with darker centres. The hindwings, head, thorax, body, legs, 
and antennae are yellowish-grey, and the thorax is very beautifully 
crested with brown-tipped tufts of long hair-like scales. The palpi 
are very long, and evidently highly specialised. Like the other 
members of the genus the present species is very constant in coloura¬ 
tion, but varies somewhat in the extent and intensity of the brown 
markings, which occasionally suffuse the whole of the wings, 12 the spot 
alone remaining unchanged — a very striking form paralleled by a rare 
aberration of the common Silver Y ( Plusia gamma). There is also a 
beautiful shining silvery-white form of moneta found in Siberia. 11 
The moth commences to fly about 9 p.m. (second brood about 
6 p.m.) and has been seen to frequent the flowers of several kinds of 
plants besides monkshood and larkspur, which, of course, seem the 
most natural sources of its food supply. White and bladder 
campions, rosebay willow herb, valerian, honeysuckle, syringa, 
privet, bramble, foxglove, viper’s bugloss, tobacco plants, and 
thrift have been noted as possessing attractions for this species and 
it has also been seen flying amongst roses and round a plum-tree on 
which ripe fruit was hanging. I cannot find any records of its 
coming to sugar, but many of the specimens captured have lost their 
lives through a fatal partiality for artificial light. 
This species appears to be double-brooded under favourable 
climatic conditions, but in cool seasons a single brood is the rule. In 
this country, at least in the south, there seems to be a partial second 
brood in September in forward seasons, the first or normal brood 
appearing in May or June, sometimes straggling on into July, or even 
August. 
The larvae hibernate close to 14 , or under, the ground in the hollow 
stems of the foodplants and commence feeding as soon as the plants 
have grown sufficiently to provide the necessary accommodation, 
March 26th being the earliest record I can find 15 for their first 
appearance. Those of the second brood feed in August on the flowers 
and seeds, spinning the former together. I have found small larvae in 
autumn feeding on the seeds in the late capsules 10 . 
This species is the Noctna moneta of Fabricius, N. flavago of Esper, 
and N. napelli of Linnaeus (vide Entomologist xxiii., p. 287), and 
according to Grote ( Entomologist’s Record, viii., p. 303) it is the type 
and only British representative of Hubner’s genus Polychrisia, the rest 
of the British Plusias being classified by him as follows: — Plnsia — 
chrysitis (type), chryson and bractea ; Chrysaspid ia =festucae (type); 
Antographa—gamma (type), iota, pulchrina and interrogationis. 
12 Ent. llec., viii., p. 305. 
13 Ent., xxxiii., p. 287. 
14 L. W. Newman, in lit. 
15 Ent., xxxvi., p. 101. 
16 Ent., xlv., p. 206. 
xxii.-xxiii. 
