1915] Wheeler and Williams — New Zealand Glow-Worm 37 



was identified as Trimicra pillipes by Baron Osten-Sacken. The 

 noted dipterist, however, regarded the luminous larvje sent to 

 him as those of a MycetophiUd (1886). 



A more exhaustive account of the Hfe-history of the New Zealand 

 glow-worm was published by Hudson in 1891. He studied the 

 insect in the deep ravine of the botanical garden at Wellington 

 and with some difficulty worked out its transformations. It 

 proved to be a Mycetophilid and was described by Skuse as 

 Bolitophila luminosa in an appendix to Hudson's paper. The 

 imago, identified by Osten-Sacken as Trimicra pallipes did not, 

 therefore, develop from one of the luminous larvae but from another 

 larva that had accidentally entered Hudson's breeding cage. 

 The pupa of the Bolitophila is figured with a large branched and 

 apparently tracheal process on the prothorax. The anal segment 

 was found to be luminous in life and the imaginal flies, all of which 

 proved to be females, were also luminous, emitting from the tip 

 of the abdomen "a strong light about half as bright as that emitted 

 by a full grown larva." 



On September 5, 1914, the senior author, while visiting New 

 Zealand, took part, through the kindness of Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, 

 in an excursion to the Waitakari Forest, near Auckland, for the 

 purpose of inspecting some of the few large surviving kaori-pines 

 (Agathis australis Salisb.). In order to reach the forest by a short 

 cut it was found convenient to traverse a dark tunnel many yards 

 in length excavated through a small mountain and serving as a 

 viaduct for a pipe from a large reservoir to the water-works of 

 the city of Auckland. The walls of this tunnel were spangled 

 with beautiful blue-green sparks, which proved, on examination, 

 to be the luminous Bolitophila larvae described by Hudson. They 

 varied from about 1 to 3.5 cm. in length and were living on slender 

 glutinous threads which, in some cases, depended from the ceiling 

 of the tunnel. Several of them, transferred to a moist vial, were 

 later examined under a strong pocket lens and showed the luminous 

 organ very distinctly in the dilated ovoidal terminal segment 

 of the body. This segment bears a pair of small, jointed cerci 

 and is, therefore, probably the eleventh abdominal metamere. 

 The organ appeared as four parallel rods closely applied to one 

 another in the middle of the vesicle on the ventral surface of the 

 very slender rectum. Their long axes were parallel with the long 



