144 Mr. G. F. Mathew’s life-histories of 
roosting at the extremity of dead twigs, and, when in 
this position, can be easily captured between the finger 
and thumb. 
On April 14th, 1883, I discovered the larve in a 
garden at Darling Point, Sydney, feeding upon a hedge 
of T’axonia. They were in the utmost profusion, and 
of all sizes, from the tiny individuals just hatched to the 
full-grown larve. In their earlier stages they are gre- 
garious in their habits, but as they grow older they 
separate and wander about. ‘Their chrysalids were 
hanging everywhere, and the butterflies were flying 
about in numbers. 
On April 24th we left Sydney for a cruise. I then 
had a dozen larve still feeding, but in a few days all the 
food died and shrivelled up. I expected that the larve 
would die also, but to my astonishment they all crawled 
to the top of the breeding-cage and there fixed them- 
selves to a pad of silk, and remained perfectly quiet, as 
if with the intention of hybernating. On May 13th, at 
Suva, Fiji, I placed three large Noctue larve in their 
box, but these did not disturb them in the least. In 
about three weeks I bred a beautiful moth from one of 
these larve, and as it was rather lively I dropped a few 
drops of chloroform into the box to stupefy it, and this 
had the effect of rousing the Andromacha larve, and 
most of them fell writhing to the bottom of the box. 
Next day several of them were dead. At the beginning 
of June, when we were among the Gilbert Islands, 
within a short distance of the line, the remaining four 
or five larve, which were very small half-starved looking 
creatures, began to move about, attached themselves ina 
the usual manner, and in a few days changed to chry- 
salids. Between June 11th and 18th these produced 
very dwarfed butterflies. From the above it would 
seem that these larve have the power of abstaining frona 
food for a lengthened period, which will account for the 
uncertain appearance of the perfect insects. 
‘The full-grown larva is 30 to 35 mm. long, cylindrical, 
deep sienna-brown, and somewhat shining, with rows of 
long slender, subdorsal, spiracular, and subspiracular 
branched spines, the bases of which are seated upon 
slightly raised metallic, blue-black spots; dorsal and 
subdorsal stripe paler than general ground colour ; head 
pale sienna-brown with black blotch on face, and a 
