188 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XIX. — On the Occurrence of Metacrias strategica at 



Invercargill. 



By George Howes, F.E.S. 



Communicated by G. V. Hudson, F.E.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 28th August, 1900.] 



Seeing that only a single specimen of this insect appears to 

 have been previously met with, a record of its occurrence in 

 the Invercargill district, and a brief account of the habits and 

 life-history of the species, may perhaps be deemed worthy of 

 a place in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." 

 I shall not at present attempt to give a technical description 

 of this moth in any of its stages, but shall only give a simple 

 record of my experience in finding and rearing the larvae. 



My first specimen of the moth I reared in 1897 from a 

 chrysalis taken from under a log in a swampy locality about 

 four miles east of Invercargill. The cocoon was spun amongst 

 those of Nyctemera annulata on the under-surface of the log. 



On the 13th August I took several larvae from under logs 

 in the bush, which, from their resemblance to the caterpillar- 

 skin adhering to the chrysalis of the strategica I had reared, 

 I thought must be the larvae of that moth. I found them in 

 similar circumstances to the other — at the roots of grasses on 

 the surface of the ground under logs. They harmonized so 

 well with the dark-brown bush-earth and the brown stalks 

 of the grass that it was hard to detect them. The bush 

 from which I took them is on the banks of the Waihopai River, 

 about two miles north of Invercargill. At various times I 

 took as many as fifty caterpillars from this one place, and 

 although I looked in other poi'tions of the surrounding bush I 

 ■could find no traces of the insect, although the conditions 

 seemed identical. The area over which I found them scat- 

 tered was about 4 chains long by about half a chain broad. 



My records of captures give me : 13th August, 1899, six 

 larvae ; 31st October, 1899, sixteen larvae ; 29th October, 1899, 

 three larvae, three pupae ; 10th September, 1899, fourteen 

 larvae ; 22nd October, 1899, fourteen larvae, two pupae. These 

 resulted in imagos as follows : 19th November, 1899 — one 

 male and one female emerged ; 20th November, 1899 — one 

 male emerged ; 29th November, 1899 — one male and one 

 female emerged ; 5th December, 1899 — two males and two 

 females emerged ; 7th December, 1899 — one male emerged 

 (the wings of this specimen never developed properly). 



