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NOCTUIDÆ.
The present family is a very natural one, corresponding to the section Phalæna noctua of Linnæus, and containing no fewer than about eight hundred European species, and four hundred British, besides exotics. The genera already established are very numerous, and in many cases founded in such minute structural differences, that they cannot be recognised without great difficulty. The antennæ are simple and setiform, very rarely pectinated or ciliated in the males; the body short and stout, the thorax being often crested; the mouth is well developed, the spiral tongue long, the palpi projecting, and in general having the terminal joint naked, at least at the tip. The wings are usually deflexed, or folded on each side of the body, when in a state of repose, but frequently they are horizontal, and partly expanded. The caterpillars are very diversified, generally solitary, not residing in a web, and apparently in no case subcutaneous. For the most part they have sixteen feet. The pupa is never suspended, and is almost always buried in the earth.
