476 



NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



Mr. Stead exhibited specimens of a " Carpenter Bee," Lestis 

 ceratus, Smith, with the stem of a young eucalypt in which they 

 had bored— a departure from the usual habit in accordance with 

 which choice is made of the flowering- stalks of the Grass-Tree 

 (Xanthorrhoea). 



Mr. W. W. Froggatt exhibited specimens of '•' plague- 

 caterpillars " attacked by a fungoid disease (^Ento7nophthora aus- 

 traliana, McAlpine) in various stages of development, with a 

 Note thereon. Millions of caterpillars or " cut worms " have 

 overrun the Central Division of New South Wales during the 

 last two months, eating off hundreds of acres of crops and 

 thousands of acres of grass. They have been reported as more or 

 less a pest right from Moree on the north to Albury on the south. 

 They are probably the larvae of Agrotis niunda, Walk., or A. 

 ■in/um, Boisd., as odd specimens of these moths have been 

 obtained in the districts mentioned. Fortunately a disease has 

 appeared among them, which bids fair to kill most of them ofl^ 

 before they can pupate. Caterpillars infested with the fungus 

 have been forwarded to Mr. McAlpine, who has identified 

 the disease as due to an undescribed species of Entomojjhthora, a 

 genus hitherto unrecorded from Australia, for which he proposes 

 the name E. australiana. A second moth caterpillar has also 

 appeared in great numbers more in the southern districts (Coota- 

 mundra and Wagga); but this keeps to the grass lands. It is 

 most probably the caterpillar of Apina caUisto, Dbld., as great 

 numbers of this moth were noticed in the Wagga district some 

 four months a^o. 



»^ 



Mr. Froggatt also exhibited Oranges from Noumea affected 

 with fig- or palm-scale, and for compai'ison Sydney samples 

 showing the ordinary red scale. 



