Hamilton. — Vegetable Caterpillar of New Zealand. 211 



The line of growth is, in all my specimens, coincident with 

 the length of the body of the caterpillar, so that, if the cater- 

 pillar be placed in a crawling position, the " bulrush " extends 

 in front of it like the bowsprit of a vessel. This is quite 

 different to any of the engravings that I have seen in various 

 books. Uusually the spike is represented as growing at right 

 angles to the body, and the caterpillar is gaily crawling on the 

 ground, bearing the spike, whilst what is presumed to be the 

 perfect insect flies away in the distance. And now to return to 

 my own specimens. All that I obtained I found buried in the 

 ground in the dense bush, with but a very small proportion of 

 what I have called " the spike" visible, and considerable care is 

 required to dig out a specimen without breaking it, especially 

 the finer ones. 



In an article recently published in a Southern paper giving 

 a lively account of this vegetable caterpillar, the statement is 

 reiterated, which is found in all books on New Zealand, that the 

 Aweto, or vegetable caterpillar, is only found under the rata 

 tree (Meirosideros). Now, in the part of the bush from which 

 my specimens came, there is no rata, and to find specimens it 

 is best to look under the papa-namu [Coprosma grandifolia). 



No trees can be more unlike than the Metrosideros and the 

 Coprosma, and yet the larvae probably feed on the leaves of 

 either tree. It is possible that the differences perceptible 

 in the caterpillars in the dried state might be more easily 

 examined and determined when in the living and perfect state, 

 but I have not yet had any opportunity of examining living 

 specimens. 



I believe vegetable caterpillars have been found in nearly all 

 the forest districts of New Zealand. I have seen them from the 

 Seventy-mile Bush (the Puketoi Eanges), Te Aute, Te Haroto, 

 and Tarawera in this neighbourhood, and from various parts of 

 the Wellington Provincial District. 



And now let us examine a specimen a little more closely, and 

 compare it with similar instances from other countries. On 

 making a transverse section across the sporiferous portion, a 

 closely-packed ring of conidia or spore-cases is seen arranged 

 round a woody axis, the structure of which is not well-defined. 

 The spore-cases, under the microscope, appear like grapes of a 

 rich brown colour, and some appear to show a light spot near 

 the outer end of the longer axis, through which probably the 

 sporidia are discharged. Intermixed with the spore-cases occur 

 numbers of what are probably linear sporidia, slightly twisted 

 and jointed ; sometimes these occur in tufts. In the " Hand- 

 book of the New Zealand Flora," the caterpillar-fungus is placed 

 under Cordiceps, but in more recent works on fungology it 

 appears as Torrubia, owing to the discovery by Tulasne of 

 secondary forms of fruit. 



