JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
Iv 
lather ovals, and, when young, will follow one another round and 
round for hours together. They retain their propensities even 
when full grown, and even if there be only two, one immediately 
takes the lead, and the other follows. When 1 had as many as 
fifty, I used sometimes to separate them into three or four parties, 
when the same result of election took place, and the inarching 
was continued in as many separate circles. I found the eggs on 
the under-side of a leaf of the stringy bark tree {Eucalyptus ?), 
covered with a most beautiful protection of black down, not in 
tufts, but exactly like black velvet ; but I will spare you further 
description until I am more successful. 
“ The habits of another species* struck me as being rather sin- 
gular. I have called it in my notes the “ Migrating Caterpillar.” 
13ack brownish olive, bounded by a longitudinal straw-coloured 
stripe on each side. Sides rather lighter, with minute dots : on 
the back are small jet-black dots, two on each segment only per- 
ceptible when the animal walks. Under-parts straw-coloured yel- 
low. Legs and prolegs brown. Head glossy brown, with a Y- 
shaped yellow band, with its base towards the back, which part 
of the head has also two short yellow stripes. 
“ This caterpillar made its appearance about 20th December, 
on which day a barley-field was ploughed up, not far from the 
house, which appeared literally to be moving, and for five days 
after the migration of the caterpillars was astonishing. They 
proceeded up the road from the field, entered at the gateway into 
the lawn, then crossed the verandah in front of the house, and 
through two gardens, until they reached a field layed down in 
English grasses, where they committed sad havoc. Many of 
them did not stop here, as the whole road, from the field to the 
* The moth produced from these migrating caterpillars is one of the Noctuide, 
apparently belonging to the genus Xylophasia, being about the size of I \octua 
heputica. 1 have represented it in pi. xx. fig. 1. It may be described thus. 
Noclua ( Xylophasia ?) Ewingii, Westw. Pallide grisea ; lineis tenuissimis lon- 
gitudinalibus ad basin alarum anticarum serieque denticulorum obliquit versus 
apicem, brunneis ; striga tenui punctoque ordinario albis, hujus medio nigro, cili& 
albo-maculata, maculis mediis in discum alarum in lineis tenuissimis albis ex- 
tensis ; alis posticis pallide fuscis, apicibus saturalioribus. 
Long. corp. lin. 9. Expans. alar. lin. 19. 
Habitat in Terra Van Diemenii. Dom. Ewing. Larva migratoria. 
Mr. Davis has described the proceedings of a singular procession of caterpillars, 
noticed at Adelaide, in South Australia, probably identical with those observed 
by Mr. Ewing, in the Magazine of Natural History, New Series, for March, 1839. 
— (J.O. W.) 
VOL. II. 
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