396 STUDIES IN AUSTRALIAN MECOPTERA, ii., 



had obtained only about seven specimens in the course of as 

 many years. 



Last year, I had the good fortune to find this rare species 

 fairly commonly, for the first time since I had begun collecting 

 insects around Sydney (about fourteen years). More fortunately 

 still, the area in which they occurred was a very restricted one, 

 only about a quarter of a mile from my house at Hornsby. In 

 this locality, I took, in the course of three weeks' collecting in 

 April, 1917, nearly one hundred specimens of this species. 

 Several of the females laid eggs, but unfortunately none of these 

 were fertile. I therefore watched carefully to see where the 

 females appeared to be ovipositing, and determined to select a 

 small area where there would seem to be a probability of finding 

 the larv?e in February and March of this year. 



As nothing is know^n of the life-history of this species, I worked 

 upon the supposition that its larva would behave much as that 

 of Panorjm; i.e., that it would become rapidly full-fed, and then 

 burrow into the ground and remain there for the greater part of 

 the year, only pupating a week or two before the emergence of 

 the imago. This supposition proved to be fairly correct. 

 Digging and sifting of the soil in which the larva was expected 

 to occur was begun in February and continued into March. The 

 details of this arduous but interesting work are best left to be 

 given in a full account of the life-history, which I hope to pub- 

 lish later on. Meanwhile, it will be sufiicient to say that, one 

 day in March, freshly turned pup?e were obtained, and that these 

 were at once made use of for the purposes of this paper. 



Owing to the shape of the pupa, and the direction of the wing- 

 sheaths, which are laid more parallel to the abdomen than is usual 

 in pupse, it was not found practicable to use the method adopted 

 previously in the case of Chryso'pa. It \vas necessary to separate 

 the wings from one another carefully, and to cut them off at their 

 extreme bases with sharp scissors. As the wings are excessively 

 delicate, this was not easy to do successfully. The photomicro- 

 graphs obtained show how the delicate wings became creased 

 near their middles, in the endeavour tu separate the glued ex- 



