NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 425 



which funned puits of their boundaiies. Their shullowiiess would 

 alluw, during the day-lime, of suliicient warmth from the sun to 

 enable development to proceed. Adults were found, biting duriri"- 

 the day-time, amongst trees at a lower level (about 5,000 feet) 

 near the Hotel Kosciusko. This species, which is one of the 

 earliest Australian forms recorded, seems previously to have been 

 taken only in Tasmania, and at Marysville, Victoria. It will be 

 interesting to ascertain whether its habitat is restricted to high 

 and cold districts. Its occurrence in Tasmania and at Kosciusko 

 is of considerable interest, being another of the liidvs connecting 

 the faunas of these parts. Dr. Cleland also showed an aboriginal 

 stone axe-head, picked up amongst the remains of kitchen mid- 

 dens and fragments of aboriginal bones on the slopes of a sandhill 

 overlooking the northern end of Cronulla Beach, within three 

 miles of Captain Cooks first landing-place in Botany Bay. He 

 also mentioned that, at the end of June, he had met with a 

 white-bellied Sea-eagle {Ilalinctus leucogaster Gm.) dwelling so 

 close to Sydney as an unfrequented arm of Middle Harbtur. 

 Here it had its massive nest in a large tree about 30 feet fic^m 

 the ground on a hill-slope covered with trees and shrubs. From 

 its attentions to the neighbourhood of the nest, this structure 

 was probably then in use. 



Mr. A S Le Souef showed the skin of a very dark .specimen 

 of the Vulpine Wialanger (Trichosurus vulpecula) from Yallup, 

 W.A., [per faNour of the Director of the Perth Museum and Art 

 Gallery]. The hair on the back is long, and silky and black; 

 under fur grey, the breast white. T. vulpecula seems to vary 

 more in West Australia than in the East, where melanism is 

 very infrequent, although general in T. canimis. 



Dr. Petrie (for Dr. Chapman) showed a Posidonia fibre-ball 

 picked up on Balmoral Beach; and he reported that the beaches 

 round Middle Harbour were strewn with Posidonia after the S.E. 

 gale of last week. 



l^r. D'Ombrain exhibited some remarkable undetermined chry- 

 salides encased in leaves, from Springwood; and also the eggs of 

 an undetermined insect. 



