274 LARVA OR MAY BEETLE.—PIERS. 
surface to within a short distance of the end is toinentose. A 
longitudinal section, examined in the same manner, showed it 
to be of a fibrous nature. Near the base, the centre can be sep- 
arated from the other portions as a core. 
When first taken from the ground the growths were of a 
dark purplish colour, changing to white at the extremity. 
They have been gradually becoming darker until now they are 
almost black. The interior parts are white. There is no ap- 
pearance of fruit. 
Wood, in his Natural History, gives a figure of the larva of 
Hepialus virescens, which has a similar growth upon the head. 
He thus describes it (p. 530) : 
“The New Zealand Swift is a truly curious insect, not so much 
for its form or colours, but for the strange mischance which 
often befalls the larva, a vegetable taking the place of the 
ichneumon fly, and nourishing itself on the substance of the 
being which gives it support. A kind of fungus affixed itself 
to the larva, and becomes developed on its strange bed, taking 
up gradually the fatty parts and tissues of the caterpillar, 
until at last the creature dies under the parasitic growth, and 
is converted almost wholly into vegetable matter.” 
In the Museum Collection there is a specimen of this larva 
with the fungus growth as described above. It is from New 
Zealand, and was presented by Mr. A. Crichton. The fungus 
proceeds from the summit of the head in the same manner as 
shown in Wood's plate. 
With the exception of about an inch of the extremity, the 
whole surface, under the microscope, appears tomentose. The 
basal portion is of an ochre colour and the extremity for about 
an inch is brown-red. Length of caterpillar 2.50 inches. Length 
of fungus 4.60 inches. (Dry specimen.) This is doubtless Torrubia 
robertsv. 
A writer makes the following remarks upon the sight of one 
of these doomed insects in the grasp of its merciless mur- 
derer. 
“Tt is a curious spectacle to behold the heavily-burdened larva 
bearing erect upon its body a vegetable growth often three or 
CO a 
