142 Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. [voPxxix 



North-West Australia ; and Professor Tilden, of the University 

 of Minnesota, U.S.A. Messrs. T. S. Hart, M.A., and H. B. 

 Williamson, country members, were also present. 



Messrs. A. G. Hamilton and C. P. Conigrave briefly replied, 

 thanking members for their very cordial welcome. 



Professor Tilden expressed very great pleasure at what she 

 had seen during her short sojourn in Australia, and stated that 

 field excursions were also made from her university, sometimes 

 to places 2,000 miles distant. 



PAPERS READ. 



By Messrs. G. A. Waterhouse, B.Sc, B.E., F.E.S., and 

 G. Lyell, F.E.S., entitled " Description of a New Lycaenid 

 Butterfly, with Notes on its Life-History." 



In the absence of the authors the paper was read by Mr. G. 

 Coghill. In it the authors stated that on several occasions, 

 both in New South Wales and Victoria, the females of a 

 Lycaenid butterfly, somewhat resembling Pseudodipsas cyrilus 

 of Anderson and Spry, had been taken, but whether the 

 specimens were females of that butterfly or a distinct species 

 could not be determined until the current season, when eggs, 

 larvae, and pupae of the supposed new species were obtained 

 at Ocean Grove, Victoria, from which a series of butterflies was 

 obtained, proving it to be a new species. Like many other 

 Lycaenid butterflies, the larvae are associated with ants, hence 

 the name chosen for the new species — P. myrmecophila. Some 

 interesting notes on the life-history of the butterfly were 

 included in the authors' remarks. 



Mr. R. W. Armitage, M.Sc, said that the authors mentioned 

 that ])robably the larvae were fed by ants. Mr. Dodd, of North 

 Queensland, had observed Liphyni brassolis, which lives in the 

 nest of the Green Tree-Ant, CEcophylla virescens, and dis- 

 covered that the ants feed the larvae of this butterfly on their 

 larvae. 



Mr. F. Spry said he hardly thought that ants feed the larvae. 

 Possibly they had some other food-plant than Acacia pycnantha, 

 and night observation would j)rove whether they were fed by 

 ants or otherwise. 



Mr. J. A. Kershaw, F.E.S., congratulated the authors upon 

 their discovery of a new "blue" in Victoria, and their investi- 

 gations, in conjunction with Mr. H. W. Davcy, regarding its 

 life-history. It was interesting to learn that while P. cyrilus. 

 And. and Spry, a Victorian species, is considered to be a 

 southern form of P. hrisbanensis, though at one time thought 

 to be the same, still another very closely allied species had now 

 been discovered. With regard to the food of the larva;, further 

 investigations were required. 



