90 NE W ZEALAND ENTOMOLOG Y. 



shades of warm brown (Fig. 7), while in the female the 

 prevailing hue is slaty brown or even grey (Fig. /a). 

 Many specimens are much suffused with ochre and red- 

 dish-brown, while the stigma near the centre of the fore- 

 wing, although sometimes almost obsolete, is often very 

 conspicuous and black, white, or even yellow in colour. 

 It would be of great interest to learn, by rearing a large 

 number of these insects, whether the many varieties ex- 

 isting in the larval and perfect states could be traced to 

 differences in food-plant, or some other external circum- 

 stance. 



Family GEOMETRID^:. 



Selidosema prodnctata (Plate XII., fig. I $, la $, ib larva). 



Abundant in the forest, where it may be dislodged 

 from ferns and undergrowth during the day or captured 

 flying about in the evening. Its larva is rather attenu- 

 ated, and possesses a large hump on the second abdominal 

 segment. In colour it is dark reddish brown, mottled with 

 creamy white and pale green, and is sparsely supplied with 

 a few isolated hairs (Fig. ib). It feeds on the white rata. 

 (Metrosideros scandens], and when in its usual position 

 i.e., sticking straight out from a branch absolutely defies 

 detection. Specimens, however, may be readily procured 

 with a lantern at night, when they may be found walking 

 about and eating. The pupa state is spent in .the earth, 

 about two inches below the surface, the moth appearing in 

 three or four weeks' time, this period, however, being ex- 

 tended in the case of autumnal larvae-,? to as many months. 

 It is extremely variable, scarcely two individuals being found 

 exactly alike. The colouring, as in the caterpillar, is chiefly 

 protective, consisting of a delicate tracery of browns 

 and greys, which render the insect quite invisible when 

 resting on the trunk of a tree, with its pale yellowish 

 hind-wings concealed,, a position it invariably assumes 



