190 Transactions. — Zoology. 



manuka bushes towards evening during December and January. 

 Specimens for the cabinet should always be reared from the 

 larva, as the extreme activity of the perfect insect causes 

 those captured in the open to be nearly always more or less 

 injured (fig. 3). 



Another species of Tortricidae attached to the manuka is 

 Cacoecia excessana, Walker. Its larva is very different from 

 that of the preceding species, being of a light-green colour 

 with a conspicuous yellow lateral line (fig. 6). During the 

 spring months it joins one or two leaves together, feeding 

 within, and is very active, leaving its retreat immediately 

 when detected and lowering itself by a silken thread to the 

 ground. The pupa is enclosed in a slight silken cocoon 

 between two manuka leaves, and the moth appears about the 

 end of November (fig. 5). 



DESCRIPTION OF PLATE VIII. 



Fig. 1. Sccliodes cordalis. 



Fig. 2. „ larva. 



Fig. 3. Heliostibes atycMoidcs. 



Fig. 4. „ larva. 



Fig. 5. Caccecia excessana. 



Fig. 6. „ larva. 



Art. XVI. — On the Varieties of a coynmon Moth (Declana 



floccosa). 



By G. V. Hudson. 

 {Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 13th June, 1888.] 



Plate IX. 



Seeing that the variation of Lepidoptera is attracting so much 

 attention in England at the present time, more especially in 

 its relation to the origin of species, it occurred to me that per- 

 haps a few remarks on one of our moths (Declana floccosa) 

 might be of some interest, especially as it seems not unlikely 

 that we are here actually witnessing the gradual evolution of 

 several distinct species from a single one of a very unstable 

 character. I must, however, begin my remarks by stating 

 that my information on the subject is at present very limited, 

 the varieties of this insect which actually exist being doubt- 

 lessly very much more numerous than those which I have here 

 figured and described. My chief object in writing this paper 

 is not so much to give information, as to arouse a niore active 

 interest in a subject which I feel is far too comprehensive to 

 be dealt with by myself alone. 



