THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 143 



do the females, viz.: — i, the egg; 2, the larva; 3, the pupa; 

 4, the full-grown insect. 



The egg is, as far as can be made out, precisely the same as 

 that of the female, though Dr. Signoret believes that in one or 

 two species there may perhaps be minute differences. 



The larva is, as previously stated, similar to that of the female. 

 (To be continued.) 



NOTES ON THE LIMITS OF THE GENUS HUMEA; 

 By Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M. and Ph. D., LL.D., F.R.S. 

 When, in 1804, this genus was established by Sir James Smith, 

 and also simultaneously recognized as new by Ventenat, the 

 characteristics were mainly derived from the absence of a pappus, 

 and from the remarkable foliage and inflorescence of the only 

 species then rendered known — namely Humea eleyans (Calomeris 

 a?narantoides, Ventenat), a native of south-eastern Australia. 

 When, in 1839, Professor Lindley described as new the genus 

 Pithocarpa, from south-western Australia, also containing a 

 solitary species only, it could not be expected, that two plants so 

 differently looking and from places so widely apart should be 

 considered congeneric. When, in 1852, a third species turned 

 up, this time in South-Australia, and was then defined by me, it 

 was also thought, on account of its peculiar habit and headlets, 

 that it was the type of a new genus (Haeckeria), though the 

 alliance to Humea was already recognized. But when soon, 

 subsequently a fourth and a fifth were found in Victoria, I saw 

 the necessity of uniting Haeckeria with Humea, but maintained 

 the genus Acomis, with two species discovered not much later 

 in New South Wales and Queensland, the habit being again so 

 very different from that of any of the other Humeas. Quite 

 recently however a sixth species, with much of the outer 

 appearance of an Acomis, and much also resembling Helipterum 

 Jesseni, was brought from south-western Australia, so that it now 

 seems best, to place all eight under one genus. We obtain thus 

 four sections for Humea, though the genus still continues so 

 small ; but these sectional divisions correspond precisely to 

 groups in the genera Helichrysum or Helipterum or Cassinia. 

 In the last-mentioned genus, C. sputabilis stands similarly as 

 much alone as Humea elegans among its congeners. Pithocarpa 

 resembles, as regards its flower-headlets, much Helichrysum 

 obtusifolium, though the lower involucral bracts are narrowed 

 somewhat like those of H. collinum and //. oxylepis, reminding 

 also of Leptorrhynchus. Moreover, within the genus Helichrysum 

 occur, as in Haeckeria, also species with few-flowered headlets, 

 for instance : — H. baccharoides, H. ferruyineum, H. cuneifolium, 

 H. rosmarinifolium, H. selayinoides. Perhaps future researches, 

 particularly in Central Australia, will add yet to the genus 

 Humea ; but the eight species, hitherto known, might be 

 arranged in the following sequence : — Section Calomeris — 



