1892. J 55 



ENTOMOLOaiCAL NOTES FROM FREMANTLE, &c. 

 BY JAMES J. WALKER, E.N., E.L.S. 



We are now about half-way to our resting place (Hobart), our 

 progress having been much delayed by the difficulty of obtaining coaL 

 This has detained us here ever since Nov. 22nd, not in the least to my 

 regret, as, after the dreary north-west coast, this and the other localities 

 we have visited on our way down are perfect entomological paradises ! 

 Indeed, I have rarely, if ever, had better or more interesting collecting 

 than I have enjoyed during the past week. I consider that here I 

 have seen Australia for the first time. It is, how^ever, not a little 

 difficult to get much time to oneself, as the people at this place are so 

 kind and hospitable that one is fairly overwhelmed with invitations. 



I now proceed to give a brief resume of my doings since leaving 

 Baudin Island on October 25th. 



On the 27th we arrived at Eoebuck Bay (w^here Dampier landed 

 in 1688, or thereabouts), and remained in this spacious but exposed 

 anchorage until November Ist. During this time I had several oppor- 

 tunities for landing, and found quite a nice little lot of things, the 

 only drawbacks to enjoyable collecting were the heat, w^hich is very 

 great, and the simply appalling number of flies, which seem to be 

 worse, if anything, than w^hen this plague (for it is a real plague) was 

 so graphically described by Dampier : from earliest dawn until long 

 after sunset they swarm around you, especially affecting the corners 

 of your eyes, but fortunately they do not bite, they only tickle like 

 the common house-fly, which they much resemble, except that they 

 are smaller and greyer. The country is somewhat like that around 

 Port Darwin, dry and sandy, and for the most part covered with an 

 open Eucalyptus-%QYuh, and plenty of mangroves near the salt w^ater. 

 There is a small settlement (Broome), the head-quarters of a con- 

 siderable pearl-shelling industry on this coast, and also the terminus 

 of a submarine telegraph cable to Banjoewangie (Java), but not above 

 100 w^hite people, if as many ; plenty of " niggers," but all quiet and 

 harmless fellow^s. In my several excursions on shore I got perhaps 

 100 species of insects, of which about 70 were Goleoptera. Lepi- 

 do'ptera were very scarce, the only one at all plentiful being the 

 common Pieris teutonia, though I saw a fine blue Amhlypodia, ap- 

 parently different from the Port Darwin one, which I failed to catch. 

 I obtained also a few pupae of a very beautiful little CJicerocampa, 

 which I have since reared. Nearly all my best captures of Goleoptera 

 w^ere made in a small clearing near the telegraph quarters, where there 



