“I can get along very well with the Butterflies, and I know something about Beetles, but the Noctuidœ were always a great puzzle to me.” So writes one of my correspondents, and to the same effect are expressions, both oral and written, from nearly all the collectors I have had any acquaintance with. And yet there is no good reason why the Noctuidœ more than the other families or groups should be considered so very difficult. True that the species are often very closely allied, and true also that there is often more difference between variations of one species than there is between valid (so considered at present) species. Yet there are many excellent characters in the Noctuidœ, easily recognized and readily discerned, which make the placing an unknown species into its proper genus a task of little difficulty.