220 September, 1905. 



others, and I saw it but seldom, bat the hitter was usually plentiful 

 enough, and its beautiful orange-spotted larva was to be easily found 

 on the young leaves of the orange and lemon trees. P. mncleayanus, 

 Westw., an insect of most elegant appearance on the wing as well as 

 in the cabinet, though sometimes to be seen in suburban gardens, i.s 

 more especially an Illawarra butterfly, and may be observed there 

 more or less commonly from October, when the first summer bi'ood 

 emerges, to as late as the middle of June. I found the curious slug- 

 like larva in May, 1903, at Otford, not rarely on the young foliage of 

 tbe "Sassafras" tree. So closely does its peculiar pale bright green 

 colour assimilate to that of its food-plant, that it was more easily 

 found by its strong and very disagreeable scent when disturbed than 

 by sight. This scent is totally unlike the pleasant nutmeg-like fra- 

 grance of the Sassafras, but resembles that of butyric acid or the smell 

 of the little malodorous ants of the genus Cremastogaster. Specimens 

 of P. macleayanus bred in confinement are much inferior in brightness 

 of colour to those taken at large. 



Daiiais petilia, Stoll , Euplaea corinnn, Macl., and HypoUinnas 

 bolina, L., though occurring occasionally near Sydney, seem to be 

 always rare there, and I only once saw a. ^ oi H. misippus, F. — now a 

 common insect in North Australia and Queensland — on Garden Island 

 in the harbour. Anosia plexippus, L. (Danais archippus, F.) is com- 

 pletely established here, its first appearance at Sydney, 1 believe, being 

 noted about the year 1870. It may now be seen on the wing, more 

 or less commonly, on almost every fine day in the year. As its 

 natural food-plant, Asclepias curassavica, has apparently not followed 

 the butterHy to New South Wales, it finds an etficient substitute in 

 another imported weed of the same natural order. This plant, the 

 so-called "cotton-weed," Oomphocarpus fruticosus, originally a native 

 of Africa and Syria, is not unlike the Asclepias in its growth and 

 general properties, but bears white flowers, succeeded by large inflated 

 green capsules full of cottony down surrounding the minute seeds. 

 It grows commonly in waste places and by roadsides, and the con- 

 spicuous larva of Anosia plexippus may often be found on it in 

 numbers. For the first time in my long experience of this most 

 interesting butterfly, 1 found the larva to be here much infested with 

 the larva of a parasitic fly of the family Tachinidce, and often to such 

 an extent, especially in the autumn, that I failed to rear more than 

 one in a dozen to the perfect state. The butterfly is, as usual in its 

 new homes, of the ordinary North American tj^pe, and shows no sign 

 of deterioration in the Australian climate, the specimens being often 

 very fine and brightly coloured. 



