152 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



has been closed, and now presents a deserted appearance, its 

 windows being boarded up and its water tank broken. At the 

 ten-mile post, close to where the Greensborough lane turns off and 

 about a mile short of the school-house, is a small store, long and 

 familiarly known as Emms's, and here we took the opportunity of 

 augmenting our stock of provisions, which, owing to the hurry of 

 our departure from home, was somewhat scanty. Emms's store 

 it always has been, and Emms's store it still is, and on our 

 entering into conversation with the old gentleman whom we found 

 anxiously awaiting the customers who now so seldom called, he in- 

 formed us he was the original Emms who first opened the store 

 some forty years ago. Naturally he has seen many changes in his 

 neighbours, and when we mentioned that his name was well known 

 to us for the greater portion of his long residence — for it must be 

 thirty years since we first collected in the locality — he became 

 quite garrulous, but, as he was no naturalist, and we were anxious 

 to get to our destination, we had to take our departure. Although 

 we have stated that the day was lovely, it was not, so far as the 

 road was concerned and from an entomologist's point of view, a 

 good collecting one. Had there been a strong north wind we 

 should, as on previous occasions, have secured some specimens 

 from the fences bounding either side of the road, but as it 

 was we cannot record a single capture from this source. 

 Even the Cicadas, generally plentiful at this season of the year, 

 were, with the exception of the small one, G. nielanophygia, 

 entirely absent. The telegraph poles, too, which are a favourite 

 breeding-place for the pretty Longicorn, lotherium metallicum, 

 did not yield us a single specimen of these or of anything else. 



After leaving the road at the school-house we first directed our 

 attention to a large fallen red-gum branch, and after diligent 

 search secured a good-sized larva, which we think will prove to 

 be a longicorn beetle of one of the larger species of the genus 

 Phoracantha. Red-gum, Eucalyptus rostrata, is not one of the 

 eucalypts which we much favour for larvae ; the wood is very 

 hard and brittle, and the larvae consequently difficult to secure 

 without injury, even with the aid of an axe and saw, which 

 weapons we were not provided with ; and, moreover, we think its 

 principal inhabitants are mostly of the various species of the 

 abovenamed genus, which are much more easily obtained by 

 searching under the loose bark of the tree — indeed, under the 

 loose bark, in the months of January and February, it is astonish- 

 ing what a number of Phoracantha and another longicorn, 

 Epithora dorsalis, as also two or three species of Cleridse, seek 

 shelter. We well remember one tree from which, had we so 

 desired, we could easily have secured some hundreds of specimens 

 of all those varieties just mentioned. To a new collector it would 

 have proved an opportunity not to be neglected. 



