128 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON SPHCERIA LARVA RUM, Westw. 

 By George Howes and W. W. Smith. 



When staying at Orepuke, a small mining town fifty miles 

 from Invercargill, I took the opportunity of visiting the gold- 

 sluicing claims situated about one mile from the township, in 

 what was at one time a large creek-bed, but which, when the 

 miners started working at it, had long been filled in. The gold 

 is in a black iron-sand which is found in two thin layers of 

 shingle, one about fifty feet below the surface, the other about 

 five feet below it. To reach the gold the earth has to be all 

 washed away, and in washing it away large quantities of dead 

 trees, ferns, and flax are washed out. In the trunks of the trees 

 numerous specimens of the vegetating caterpillar {Charagia 

 viresccns, Walk.), called by the Maoris " aweto," are found. One 

 of the miners gave me two, each four inches long, but they had 

 been kept for a month in a tin, and had become very shrivelled. 

 The miner told me that when taken from the logs under the 

 earth they appear to be quite fresh and fat, and almost look as if 

 they had just been killed ; yet they must have been buried in the 

 earth for hundreds of years, for above them trees were growing 

 of a very considerable age. 



The fungus which attacks the caterpillar sends out a stalk 

 from its eye, which in the case of the two I possess is nearly two 

 inches long. The body of the caterpillar becomes filled with a 

 white woody substance, which preserves its shape. The logs 

 they are found in are those of the rata tree (Metrosideros lucida). 

 So far as I know, this is the first record of its occurrence in a 

 semi-fossilized state. 



George Howes. 

 Invercargill, New Zealand : Jan. 3rd, 1898. 



The valuable note on this remarkable vegeto-animal para- 

 site by my young friend Mr. George Howes supplies an important 

 item in the history and distribution of the species in New 

 Zealand. In addition to its being the first record of the occur- 

 rence of S. larvarum in the South Island, it is, as Mr. Howes 

 observes, the only record of its occurring in a semi-fossilized 

 condition. The interesting discovery will also definitely settle 

 the vexed question of the identity of the insect-host of this 

 fungus. For some years doubt has been expressed by some 

 entomologists in regard to the larva of Charagia virescens being 

 the host of S. larvarum. The last to doubt its identity was the 

 late Mr. A. S. Olliff, Entomologist to the Government of New 

 South Wales. In a valuable illustrated paper on ' Australian 

 Entoraophytes,' Mr. Olliff discussed the question, and quoted 



