ioo2.] 127 



plant, apparently an asparagus, anil were reared. This, and some other Plusice, &r\d 

 lladena renisigma buzz around the large sunflower (Helianthus) blossoms commonly 

 at dusk. They are very lively, and netting them about these heavy flowers feels like 

 hitting at a plate." 



[This is a much smaller and more blunt-winged species, having on its fore-wings 

 a small and slender silver Y. The pupa skins sent are very smooth, rather shining, 

 the tongue projection small, the lower surface semi-transparent white, indicating 

 that the wing and limb covers wore, in the living pupa, bright green ; the dorsal 

 surface dark umbreous, shading off at the sides, but on the thoracic portion showing 

 curious markings like the head and claws of a beetle larva ; cremaster thick, strongly 

 projecting, black-brown, armed with a tuft of hooked bristles which cling tightly 

 to the cocoon. The latter is light coloured, loose, silken, spun up among the fine 

 twigs of the plant]. 



Plusia Jimbirena, Gn. — " The bright green caterpillar with a fine white line 

 down the back fed on a creeper which grows round the fern stump in the verandah 

 (Tradescantia ?). It changes more rapidly than any other chrysalis that I get." 



[This is another of the "gamma" group; its fore-wings dark bronzy-brown, 

 with a bright golden gloss, the Y pale golden, slender, and sharply defined ; the 

 hind-wings dark grey-brown ; the thoracic crest short and blunt. Pupa thin skinned, 

 glossy, with very faint wrinkled sculpture, brown, more black-brown on the back, 

 the dorsal shield having a still blacker horse-shoe shaped mark ; cremaster short 

 but broad, spud-shaped, furnished with minute hooked bristles. In a thin, fine, 

 loose cocoon of dull white silk, among leaves or any convenient materials]. 



Trigonodes obstans, Walk. — " I have labelled these ' common nuisance.' They 

 seem to insist on being caught, and look so promising, flying in the dim light, that 

 one is constantly induced to run after them. I believe that they frequent every 

 flowering tree that has honey, and they particularly love aloe flowers. In these 

 flowers the honey is so abundant that children break off the aloe stems to get at it. 

 I once caught my girl with a lot of the thin watery honey in a tin basin ; she had 

 broken off the aloe blossoms on which I had prided myself— beautiful scarlet aloes 

 all round the front of the house — and was going to drink the honey which she had 

 drained from them. I fancy that moths find it rather intoxicating, more so than 

 peach honey, for when disturbed the heavy ones fall down among the thorny spikes 

 of leaves and are lost, unless I can catch them by putting the net underneath, but 

 woe to the poor net, the thorns are hooked all along the edges of the fleshy leaves. 

 From peach or apricot blossom the moths fly away briskly." 



Eurrhipia aditlatrtx, Hub.— This pretty moth I found by day on a Begonia 

 blossom ; so queerly settled, with wings clasped closely down, fore-legs rather visibly 

 put forward, and the abdomen curled up, that I thought, until I looked closely at 

 it, that it was a little faded flower." 



Eriopus LatreiUii, Dup. — These moths are reared from some caterpillars that 

 I found on the fern stump ; they were smooth, not hairy, bright brown, with a fine 

 light yellow line along each side, and a fainter dorsal line formed of yellow and 

 black markings. I send cocoons." 



[These cocoons are soft and slight, composed of thin brown silk. The enclosed 

 pupa short, broad and slightly flattened, extremely glossy, but almost without 



