attended by similar results; though the moths were not quite so numerous as in 1855. 

 The moths appeared in church this year on the 14th of Septemher, and from that date 

 to this have gone on increasing in numbers, until several bushels have been destroyed, 

 though, apparently, without much diminishing the army. The slate of the church was 

 such on Sunday last (6lh October) from the accumulated dust (molh-feathevs), and the 

 incessant swarms that were continually flying through the building, that divine 

 service could noi be held therein. More than seven days' hard labour in endeavouring 

 to subdue them had been spent in vain ; and since then, applications of the strongest 

 ammonia, sulphur smoke, and other contrivances used for hours, have failed to drive 

 them away, for as fast as one swarm is partly destroyed another succeeds. There are 

 so many openings in the building that cannot be closed, and so many lodgments out- 

 side, that no smothering contrivance has succeeded ; and as the trees and ground are 

 full of them, the moths, if driven away for a time, muster again and return. Tliis 

 morning I made an attempt to reckon up the numbers grouped together on the 

 Avindows, and I counted more than 80,000, In the tower and below the floor, and 

 liidden behind the skirting, there are probably many millions. An opinion has been 

 published, that these moths came in from the sea. A flight fully a mile in length, 

 very thick and broad, was certainly seen on the evening of the 20th of September, 

 travelling from the direction of the Heads along ihe North Shore ; and another similar 

 flight was seen at Newcastle, probably both directed by a N.E. wind, which would in 

 the latter case have, perha|>s, blown them from the projecting land about Port 

 Stephens, and so they might have crossed the water. The sands of the sea have been 

 known in former years to be bordered by a thick band of dead moths, doubtless blown 

 in from the land, drowned, and washed ashore. I am told that a vessel, yesterday, 

 twenty miles from land, was covered by them. My own observations, specially on the 

 22nd of December, 1851, lead me to believe that if they have migrated from a distance 

 they have come from the west and south-west, especially as their first appearance this 

 year was v\ith a west wind. And it must be remembered, that previous visitations 

 have probably left eggs enough to account for the present multitudes within less 

 distance than that from Sidney to Mount Kosciusco." 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited the moths forwarded by Dr. Bennett to Dr. Gray. They 

 did not appear to differ from the "Bugong moth," Agrotis spina of Giienee. With 

 reference to Dr. Bennett's remark that males only had been found, it may be observed 

 that the box forwarded by him contained about an equal number of male and female 

 specimens. Both sexes also have been described, in a paper read before the 

 Entomological Society of New South Wales, by Mr. A. W. Scott, who applies to the 

 insect the name of Agrotis vastator. The following is an extract from Mr. Scott's 

 paper: — 



" The caterpillar of this moth is fleshy, little attenuated at each extremity, sub- 

 vermiform in appearance, and of a livid colour, varying much in shade, with the 

 anterior segment furnished with a horny plate. It measures at maturity about two 

 inches, and undergoes its transformation in the ground. The chrysalis is cylindro- 

 conical, of a shining yellowish brown, and protected by a slight cocoon of a rough 

 irregular ovoid form, composed of agglutinated earth. The caterpillars of several 

 species of Agrotis, such as the one now under consideration, are very destructive on 

 account of their numbers, feeding ou the roots aud leaves of low herbage, and biding 



