■'^"■'I DoDD, A Naiuralist in New Guinea. i-xy 



A NATURALIST IN NEW GUINEA. 



By F. p. Dodd. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists'- Club of Victoria, 12th Aug., 191 8.) 



{Continued from page 132.) 



We obtained many beautiful moths of the famiHes PyraHdas 

 and Geometridce, those of the Mihonias of the latter being 

 particularly showy. Sphingidae were disappointing; all but one 

 we took being well known in Queensland, so evidently it would 

 be necessary to go further north or west, or into the higher 

 mountains, to obtain good species. By rearing and capturing 

 we soon had a good series of the showy Troides, Priamns pro- 

 nomus, and took several worn examples of another of the genus, 

 it having dull sooty wings, with an extensive yellow area in 

 hind wings. The eyed butterflies of the genus Tenaris were 

 plentiful ; one large species we failed to capture, but in the 

 Lycsenidge we were very successful. By observing the yellow 

 (Ecophylla ant, which is absolutely different from the virescens 

 of Queensland, to this day erroneously called Smaragdina 

 (which is an Indian species, and probably different from the 

 Papuan), we bred two brilliant insects of the genus Arhopala 

 and captured two others, one being a magnificent species over 

 two inches in expanse, and of most brilliant violet-purple. To 

 our surprise the common Arhopala eupolis, a green tree-ant 

 associate in Queensland, was found with another ant altogether 

 — a black insect with white-grey abdomen, common in the 

 forest country of Queensland and here.- At raspberry bushes 

 and a scale-infested shrub we took several species of the beautiful 

 genus Miletus, M. rovena and a Philiris being partial to the 

 shrub. Altogether, our Lycsenid collections were very satis- 

 factory. 



We several times saw Nyctalemon orontes, and were puzzled 

 more than once with its flight, the movements appearing quicker 

 than usual with this well-known day-flying moth ; but, obtaining 

 some gregarious caterpillars, they duly pupated as Papilios do, 

 so we wondered what we should get in a butterfly. It was a 

 surprise to find that we were rearing Papilio laglaizei, an 

 almost perfect mimic of the moth ; then we understood the 

 differences in flight, for sometimes we, knowing nothing of the 

 butterfly, had very naturally taken specimens of it for the 

 moth. The deception above is almost perfect, but the under 

 side is widely different in the hind wing ; however, like the 

 moth, the mimic keeps its wings flatly spread when at rest. 

 N. orontes is not so large as in Queensland, is without the violet 

 reflections from the olive-green bands, but the black is deeper 

 and bands slightly more greenish. At Mrs. Wright's I had seen 



