144 C. B. HARDENBERG. 



from the composition of its bag-covering, it presumably feeds 

 on grasses, I have very rarely (one specimen only) noticed it 

 in its supposedly natural surroundings, but have usually found 

 the bags attached to tree-trunks, fence-posts, walls of buildings, 

 projecting ledges of rocks, and fastened to various objects in 

 rubbish-heaps ready for pupation. Larvae actually feeding 

 I have found only on the lower branches of the black wattle, 

 Acacia mollissima, but this is certainly not its natui-al 

 food-plant. 



We therefore find practically no mention of this species in 

 literature, and the moth had not been reared till 1915, when 

 we succeeded in breeding some half-dozen males. The moth, 

 proving to be new, has been described by Janse as Acantho- 

 psyche tristis. 



The only writer who has mentioned this species, so far as 

 I can ascertain, is Claude Fuller, who in his article on " Some 

 Natal Bagworms and Basket- worms," quoted in Pt. I, figured 

 its bag and gave it the popular name of " The Wandering 

 Bagvvorm," probably on account of its bag being usually 

 found away from its food-plant, thus evidencing a tendency 

 to travel on the part of the fully-grown larva. Junod, in 

 his ' Fauna Entomologique de Delagoa,' does not enumerate 

 this species and does not figure its bag, so that it appears 

 to be uncommon in that locality. Nevertheless it should 

 occur there also, as isolated specimens have been found by 

 the writer at Bshowe, Zululand, and by Janse at Durban. 

 We have found it more frequently at higher altitudes, between 

 two and four thousand feet. 



Food-plants. — During the spring (October) of 1917 the 

 writer found this species fairly abundantly in Pietermaritzburg 

 on the foliage of Asparagus, and a few other ornamental 

 plants. On the latter they were probably accidental feeders, 

 but the Asparagus appeared to be eminently suitable for 

 their development, and specimens in captivity were fed entirely 

 on it with satisfactory results, the long slender petioles and 

 twigs of the plant lending themselves very well to the 

 construction of the bag-covering. Its distribution was very 



