176 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE GENUS DROMICIA ON THE AUSTRALIAN 

 MAINLAND. 



To the, Editor oj the Victorian Naturalist. 



Sir, — In the "Records of the Australian Museum," vol. v.. No. 

 2, p. 134, published in January last, Mr. E. R. Waite records the 

 capture of Droinicia nana from the Snowy River country in New 

 South Wales. From his remarks it would seem that he is under 

 the impression that this is the first authentic record of this 

 Tasmanian species on the mainland, Krefft's D. unicolor {= D. 

 nana) having been regarded by Thomas (Brit. Mus. Cat., 

 Marsup. and Monot.) as introduced. As a matter of fact its 

 occurrence has been , previously noted, and it is evidently still 

 widely spread in the south-east of the continent. 



In his presidential address to Section D, at the Hobart meet- 

 ing of the Australasian Association in 1892, Professor Baldwin 

 Spencer noted D. nana as occuring in southern Victoria. In the 

 "Report of the Horn fc^xpedition (1896)," p. 184, the same 

 author, in a footnote, records its capture at Gembrook by Mr. 

 Dudley Le Souef, on the Pllacks Spur by himself, and at Sale by 

 Mr. A. Purdie. The Blacks Spur specimen is now in the 

 Biological Department's Museum, and Mr. Purdie's example was 

 examined by Professor Spencer and myself. 



Dr. R. Broom, in the " Proceedings of the Linnean Society of 

 New South Wales," in 1896, places it on record that he " found 

 a large number of both lower and upper jaws " of D. nana in a 

 bone breccia deposit near the Wombeyan Caves. 



In 1 89 7, Mr. A. H. S. Lucas, in his paper on " The Geo- 

 graphical Distribution of the Land and Freshwater Vertebrates 

 in Victoria " (Proc. Roy. Soc. Vic, vol. ix., p. 40) repeats the 

 record for this State. — I have, &c., 



T. S. HALL. 

 University, 21st March, 1904. 



Mosquitoes. — The School Papers, published monthly by the 

 Victorian Education Department for the use of the scholars in 

 the State schools, often contain articles of interest to children of 

 a larger growth. Thus the February and March issues of the 

 paper for Classes V. and VI. contain articles descriptive of the 

 life-history of the mosquito from the pen of Mr. J. A. Leach, 

 F.N.C., which are well illustrated and worthy of perusal. 



