106 VEGETABLE CATERPILLAR FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



Common Puffin, (Mormon arctica.) 



Little Auk, (Mergulus alle.) 



Razor-hill, (Alca torda.) 



Common Guillemot, (Uria troile.) 



White-winged Guillemot, (U. grylle.) 



Great Northern Diver, (Colymbus glacialis.) — Common: resident. 



• Red-throated Diver, (0. septentrionalis.) — Very rare. 

 Red-necked Grebe, (Podiceps rubricollis.) — Common in winter. 

 Pied-billed Grebe, (P. Carolinensis.) — Very rare here. 



• Cormorant, (Phalacroeorax carbo.) 



• Wandering Shearwater, (Puffinus cinereus.) 



American Oyster-catcher, (Hoematopus palliatus.) — Has been seen here. 



THE VEGETABLE CATERPILLAR FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



BY W. V. GUISE, ESQ., F. G. S. 



Having lately had opportunities of observing several specimens of the 

 strange Fungus -bearing Caterpillars of New Zealand, one of which is now 

 in my possession, I have been induced to make some inquiries into the 

 subject, and have much pleasure in supplying the following notices — being 

 all that I have succeeded in collecting — in hopes that others among your 

 numerous readers, may be able to furnish further information concerning 

 these remarkable and most singular insect phenomena. 



By far the most complete account which I have been able to meet with, 

 I find in the late Mrs. Hussey's exquisite work on the British Fungi, 

 entitled "Illustrations of British Mycology." From that work I extract 

 the following passages: — 



"The Caterpillar with a Sphoeria growing from it, is the larva of LTepialus 

 virescens of Doublcday, found in New Zealand; it is as large as those of 

 our largest Sphinxes: all colour has vanished, but the contour remains 

 perfect. From the head proceeds a rigid contorted stem, six or seven 

 inches long, like a dry twig, or very solid herbaceous flower-stem; the 

 upper portion for about one-third of its length, is closely beset with minute 

 spheres, many broken open and containing dust-like bodies. 



When first we examined this curious object, thinking of Tartarian lambs 

 and similar ingenious fabrications, we shrewdly suspected that in his native 

 paradise of ferns, a cunning New Zealander had trimmed the rhizoma of 

 some creeping fern into this Caterpillar, and that the fructification was 

 analogous to that of the Adder's tongue; but being assured on competent 

 authority that a powerful microscope developed asci and sporidia in the 

 capsules, which consequently were true Sphoerias — that we had in England 



