390 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



wing. Spending some two or three hours in this way, we 

 succeeded in finding only three or four specimens of the ex- 

 tremely abundant Crambus crenceus ; but had the weather 

 been warm and the insect flying we certainly could have 

 taken fully ten times as many specimens during the same 

 interval of time. 



The larvae of such of the grass-feeding Lepidoptera of 

 which the transformations are known are also protected by 

 a striped pattern of colouring ; but the life-histories of many 

 of these still remain to be discovered, probably owing to their 

 very efficient means of concealment. 



Mountain Collecting. 

 This is probably the most interesting class of collecting we 

 have in New Zealand, but it is not, to my mind, nearly so 

 important a branch of work for this generation of naturalists 

 as the collection of specimens in the lowland forests. Moun- 

 tains of less than 3,000 ft. in height are in places extensively 

 used for agricultural purposes, and the flora of these localities 

 will consequently be subject to modification and extinction, 

 insect fauna sharing a similar fate ; but the flora of the 

 higher mountains is not likely to be much influenced by culti- 

 vation, and hence I consider that the immediate formation of 

 collections of the higher alpine species, although of great in- 

 terest, is not so important to the interests of future science as 

 the preservation of examples of species inhabiting the rapidly 

 disappearing forests. Nevertheless, collections of the moun- 

 tain species in New Zealand are great desiderata, and as 

 these generally comprise some very attractive insects some 

 of our entomologists may be interested in a short account 

 of such limited experiences of mountain collecting as I have 



enjoyed. 



So far as Wellington is concerned, probably the most 

 accessible locality for a great variety of mountain species is 

 the Mount Arthur tableland, in the Nelson District. As I 

 have already given an account of the entomological resources 

 of this locality in the "Transactions of the New Zealand 

 Institute" for 1889, I will not occupy your time this evening 

 with any more detailed account; but I must remark that sub- 

 sequent visits have impressed me still further with the abso- 

 lute necessity for the erection of some sort of permanent 

 shelter in the locality that might be available for the use 

 of naturalists. By a" combined movement on the part of 

 a few entomologists and botanists this might be easily 

 arranged. 



I should perhaps explain that the meteorological con- 

 ditions which frequently obtain on the tableland of Mount 

 Arthur, even in the middle of summer, are such as to render 



