80 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



NOTES ON SOME VICTORIAN LEPIDOPTERA. 



By Ernest Anderson. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 

 &th August, 1892.) 



The Lepidoptera of Victoria have, so far, had but scanty 

 attention paid them, compared with other branches of natural 

 history. It is true that there have been a few ardent workers in 

 this field, and a few now exist amongst us. To these every honour 

 is due, for it is owing to their efforts, in the face of many diffi- 

 culties, that we possess whatever information on the subject is 

 now available ; but after making the most liberal allowance for 

 what has been done, it will be confessed, and by none more 

 readily than those who take an interest in the study, that our 

 knowledge of the life-histories of the Victorian Lepidoptera is at 

 the present time lamentably deficient. 



Taking the Diurni, or butterflies, which come first in the classifi- 

 cation, even as they are the first to attract the ordinary observer, 

 I would ask how many of the species computed to occur in the 

 colony have had their larvse described, their food plants 

 determined, or even their time of appearance correctly recorded ? 

 Some of the commonest species, occurring in the utmost profusion 

 all over the colony, are even now shrouded in mystery. They 

 appear regularly at certain times of the year, remain in evidence 

 for a period, and then disappear. That they must exist during 

 the intervening seasons we know ; but in what form of existence 

 we know not. It may be that the winter is passed in the ova 

 state, and the young larva? hatch with the advent of warm 

 weather in spring time ; it may be they hatch in autumn, and 

 hibernate through the cold season ; or they may brave the 

 weather, and keep feeding steadily throughout the winter — all is 

 mere supposition, for the perfect insects may themselves hibernate, 

 and only deposit ova in the spring, thus sparing their progeny the 

 dangers of storms and cold. 



It will be seen, then, what a wide scope for activity and research 

 exists. The committee have already held out inducements to 

 youthful workers in this direction, and it is partly in the hope of 

 helping them, partly in the hope of arousing interest and inducing 

 more of the members to turn their energies to the subject, that I 



