48 ON THE AGROTIS VASTATOR. 



Note. — Since the foregoing observations were written, a 

 friend of mine, who resides on the Upper Tumut, forwarded to 

 me a batch of moths, captured on the heights of the Bougong 

 Mountains, purposely, at my solicitation, at the proper season, 

 when the Bougong insect is known to congregate in such multi- 

 tudes, and when the aborigines in former times were wont to 

 assemble for the annual feast upon their bodies. 



I found upon examination of these recently acquired speci- 

 mens, that they consisted of the males and females of the Oxy- 

 canus fuscomaculatus of the Brit. Mus. Cat. Lep. Het., p. 1574; 

 the genus being the 12th of Stephen's family, Hepialidee. At 

 this result I felt much relieved, for I had made many unsatisfac- 

 tory enquiries, being doubtful of the genus Agrotis, respecting 

 the habits of the larvae, which produced in another stage an 

 article of agreeable and nourishing food to the natives of the 

 locality, so plentifully and probably for generations ; to these 

 questions, I invariably received for answer, that no assembled 

 multitude of caterpillars, sufficient to account for the vast hordes 

 of Bougong moths, were known in the Tumut district. 



It, therefore, appears highly probable that the present insect 

 is the true Bougong Moth ; and I give the following reasons for 

 this belief : — the body is plump, very oily and sweet to the taste, 

 characters similarly entertained by most of the species of the 

 Cossidae and Hepialidae ; and the larvae, being under-ground root- 

 feeders, would not necessarily attract notice, either from their 

 vast numbers or destructive qualities, the latter only exercised 

 upon wild and valueless plants. 



These natural conditions are wholly opposed to those pos- 

 sessed by the Agrotis vastator ; in whom the abdomen of the 

 perfect insect is neither unctions nor palatable ; and whose 

 habits in the larval state are strictly external, and, at uncertain 

 periods of visitation, highly injurious to the interests of man ; 

 characteristics perfectly sure to attract the attention of even the 

 most unobservant to their existence. 



