604 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



and might easily have been mistaken for 3-year old Trout, judg- 

 ing by past local experience of growth. 



Mr. Fred Turner exhibited a specimen of Eragrostis tenella 

 Beauv., "Love-grass," collected on the plains near Yetman, a new- 

 record for this rare species in New South Wales, the only other 

 locality in the north-west where the exhibitor had previously 

 seen it, being on plain-country near Warialda. This very inter- 

 esting and pretty Australian grass was first recorded by Mr. 

 Turner in the Official Catalogue of New South Wales Exhibits, 

 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, 1886, p. 439. This 

 species has been described by different botanists under various 

 names, in Brown's Prod., p. 181, as Poa tenella Linn.; in Bentham's 

 Fl. Honkg., p. 431, and Fl. Austr., vii., p. 643, as Eragrostis tenella 

 Beauv.; and in Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind., vii., p.316, as Eragrostis 

 interrupta Beauv., var. tenuissima Stapf. This grass and Era- 

 grostis pilosa Beauv., "Weeping Love-grass," are the most widely 

 distributed annual species of the genus indigenous in Australia, 

 but neither of them is endemic. When Mr. Turner was Super- 

 intendent, Botanic Gardens, Brisbane, he cultivated both these 

 grasses in adjoining plots over a series of years, and the yield of 

 herbage under cultivation was much greater, especially in the 

 case of E. pilosa, than that usually seen in the pastures. Dairy 

 stock and horses ate those grasses with avidity, both in a green 

 state and when turned into hay. Mr. F. M. Bailey, C.M.G, 

 F.L.S., Government Botanist, Queensland, has published a figure 

 and description of E. tenella, and in Turner's " Australian 

 Grasses," Vol. i., p. 26, appear a figure and description of E. 

 pilosa. Before the white man settled in Australia the latter 

 species was of some importance to the aborigines, for the grain, 

 usually produced in abundance, provided them with food. A 

 comparison of the grain of E. pilosa, with that of the allied 

 species E. abyssinica Link, one of the food-grains (" Teff") of 

 Abyssinia, showed that they were not quite as large. 



Mr. Tillyard offered some observations on the colouration of 

 the larvae of the dragonfly, uEschna brevistyla Rambur. The 

 larva lives in water-weed, and is usually of a greenish colour, 



