1904.] 115 



ANTIPODEAN FIELD NOTES. 



II.— A YEAR'S INSECT HUNTING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



BT JAMES J. WALKER, R.N., F.L.8. 



{Continued from page 77). 



The Domain, ISO acres in extent, is well timbered, but chiefly 

 with oaks, willows, poplars, and Pinus insignia, so that here it would 

 be easy to fancy oneself in an English wood, though some pretty 

 little patches of the native vegetation have been allowed to remain. 

 Almost in the heart of the city, the " Cemetery GruUy," a deep ravine 

 full of tangled scrub and noble tree-ferns of great age (Cyathea 

 viedullaris and C dealbata), forms one of the best and most accessible 

 collecting-grounds in the district. 



Coleoptera are scarcely as plentiful here as at Wellington, and 

 there is a great lack of logs, &c., available for working, though two 

 fine Carahidce, Trichosternus aucMandicus, Br., and Anchomenus bafesi, 

 Br., are to be found rarely under the few that are met with. A. sub- 

 orbithorax, Br., in company with Oilibe elongata, Breme, is abundant 

 under lava-blocks in the driest situations, and the shining jet-black 

 Dicrocliile aterrima, Bates, is taken in the Domain in very wet places. 

 Almost the only place in New Zealand where I met with water- 

 beetles in any number was a pond occupying the crater of " Mount 

 St. John," in the suburb of Remuera. In this pond, which was first 

 pointed out to me by my entomological friend Dr. Harold Swale, late 

 of Tavistock, Devon, I found our familiar Bhantus puherosus, Steph., 

 in plenty, with a few of the more elegant Lnncetes lanceolatus, Sharp, 

 and of Antiporus duplex, Sharp ; a tiny Bidessus (plicatus, Sharp) was 

 taken abundantly, with Philhydrus tritus, Br., Hydrobius zealandiais, 

 Br., and the very minute H. tiitidiusculus, Br. Under lava-blocks 

 near the water, the elegant Anchomenus submetalJicus, White, a widely 

 distributed species, occurs in swarms, with, very rarely, the little 

 iridescent Physolcesthus insularis, Bates, curiously like our Badister 

 peUatus, Panz. Beating in the " Cemetery Gully " and elsewhere 

 produces a variety of small beetles, the most remunerative stuff being 

 the dry dead stems of the so-called " Cape Ivy," Senecio mikatiioides. 

 This is a naturalized creeper which grows here most luxuriantly and 

 covers the " dry-stone " walls and bushes with dense masses of 

 tangled vegetation ; and it is now the favourite food-plant of the 

 conspicuous black-and-white day-flying moth Nyctemera annulata, 

 Bdv., the hairy larva of which may be seen on it in hundreds. Out 

 of it may be beaten the curious little Colydiid, Tarphiomi7nus indeu- 

 tattis, Sharp, quite commonly, along with species of Telmaiophilus, 



K2 



