376 WOOD MOTHS : with some account of their life-histories, 



Sydney, where their larvae annually kill a large number of trees. 

 The species is very variable both in size and markings ; the 

 ground colour is brown, mottled with grey, with irregular black 

 blotches on the fbrewings, but the black elongate horseshoe-shaped 

 band between the forewings on the thorax is always well defined. 

 Sydney specimens are smaller and generally darker than those 

 from Newcastle, which are more like Victorian examples. Pro- 

 fessor McCoy has given a detailed account of this Goat-moth in 

 his " Prodromiis of the Zoology of Victoria," Dec. iii., p. 47. 



EUDOXYLA eucalypti (1) 



A variety longer and more slender than the tyjoical F. encalytpi 

 that we get about Sydney, the creamy white patclies on either 

 side of the shoulders shading into ferruginous-brown and again 

 forming another white patch towards the tip of the wing, ending 

 in a mottled patch nearer the tip. The mottled markings on the 

 forewings are larger and more rounded than in the former species, 

 while the hind wings are I'ich ferruginous-brown, with the darker 

 mottled bands running parallel with tlie nervures and more dis- 

 tinct than in the typical form. 



The females deposit their eggs at the foot of the tree near the 

 ground ; the larvaj feed down the roots ; Mr. Thornton says he 

 has traced a bore along a root for five feet. The larva is white 

 with dark spots along the sides, and a large rough head. Length 

 when mature 6 inches. When full grown, it bores through the 

 side of the root upwards, spinning a stout felted tube from the 

 root to the surface of the ground, where the top of th6 bag is 

 much thickened. This felted tunnel varies in length according 

 to the distance of the root from the surface, but we have several 

 a foot in length. 



The larva undergoes its metamorphosis in this lined tube, and 

 when the moth emerges, the empty pupa case is left sticking out 

 of the ground an inch or two. 



A similar if not identical species attacked the roots of some 

 golden wattles {A. pycnmitha) growing in my father's garden at Ben- 



