224 r March, 



Blanchardi and Autodice, occasionallj were met -with. At tlie end of August, the 

 fields suddenly became aliye with the beautiful little Colias minuscula, Butler, both 

 sexes being equally plentiful, and I secured a lovely series. Argynnis Cytheris, 

 Drury (previously taken by me at Sandy Point in the Straits of Magellan, and 

 sparingly at Valparaiso) became common a few days later, in rocky places at the 

 foot of the hills, and with it two or three species of " Skippers," of which Pamphila 

 fasciolata, Blanch., was at once the prettiest and the most abundant ; also two fine 

 SatyridcB in October. 



Several Bombyces also turned up in the larva state, the most remarkable of these 

 being Ormiscodes crinita, Blanchard. The larva of this moth — a large, heavy-bodied 

 insect, bearing a superficial resemblance to the ? of Endromis versicolor — was ex- 

 ceedingly plentiful on the so-called " pepper-tree " {Schinus molle), and, even moro 

 Boon that abundant weed the" Quilo" {Muhlenleclciainjucunda). It looks somewhat 

 like an exaggerated Vanessa larva, being, when full-grown, nearly four inches in length, 

 of a general dark brown colour, with the incisions between the segments dull orange, 

 and each segment bearing six long branched spines. The slender tips of these, as well 

 as the short whitish hairs with which the body is clothed, sting, when touched, more 

 severely than a nettle, and I have suffered a good deal through incautiously handling 

 these well-protected caterpillars. The larvie of many other Chilian Bombyces appear 

 to possess this property of urtication, in a greater or less degree. From a green larva, 

 found commonly feeding on Aristolochia chUensis and other plants, and very closely 

 resembling that of our P. gamma, I reared a very fine series of a handsome Plusia 

 not unlike that species in general aspect and markings, but varying in ground-colour 

 from silvery-grey like interrogationis, to golden-brown almost as rich as hractea. 

 Heliothis armiger was very common flying by day in rocky places, and several species 

 of Agrotis, A. saucia among them, were to be found with their larvre — not to mention 

 plenty of scorpions — by turning over stones. The pretty yellow-flowered Leguminous 

 shrub, known in Chile as the " Flor del Mayo " {Cassia CandoUeana) was, in many 

 places completely stripped of its leaves by the handsome " half-loopcr" larva of 

 Alamis polioides, Guenee (a rather large, obscure-looking grey-brown quadrifid 

 Noctua), the pupa of which, enclosed in a slight cocoon and covered with a white 

 mealy powder, was often to be found attached to the under-side of stones in the 

 neighbourhood of the plant. A good many Oeometrce (among them one or two 

 handsome EnnomidcB, a very fine Lohophora ?, &c.) were obtained, the majority of 

 them at rest on Cactus stems, securely hidden among the formidable spines, whence 

 they could only be dislodged by punching the plants with the point of a thick stick. 

 This method of collecting yielded, in addition, a considerable variety of Tortrices and 

 TinecB, several species of Pterophori, &c. 



Coleoptera were not at first very plentiful, but directly the warm weather set in 

 at the end of September, enormous numbers of two species of large, white-striped, 

 black Heteromerous beetles {Nyctelia Lnczoti, I think, being the more plentiful of 

 the two) made their appearance. In some hot, sandy places, these creatures might 

 have been collected literally by bushels. Several other less conspicious species of this 

 group were almost equally plentiful, and a good sized black Calosoma was not rare on 

 the wing, and crawling on the sand in a railway cutting. A handsome bronzy 

 Buprestis occurred occasionally on a fine-leaved Leguminous shrub, and the flowers 

 of the Cacti harboured several small hairy beetles allied to Dasyfes, Sec, in great 

 numbers. 



