40 



Before taking the orders of Insects seriatim and listing the 

 species found on Tantalus, it is proper to say that, excepting the 

 Aculeate Hymenoptera and in a rather less degree the beetles, 

 no serious attempt has been made by me to acquire a complete 

 collection of insects frequenting the locality. Practically my 

 whole collection thence was obtained incidentally to special 

 researches on the variation of certain species of Coleoptera and 

 other insects and on the habits and foodplants, etc., of these. 



I will first take the species of Macrolepidoptera, that is to 

 say, the butterflies and moths, excepting the Tortricina, Tineina 

 and the Pterophoridae, which three groups I cannot at present 

 name. The species here listed are such as I have myself met 

 with on the slopes of Tantalus, but I believe that nearly all the 

 species of Macrolepidoptera known on Oahu might be found 

 there, either regularly or as stragglers, since the larger moths are 

 not usually much localized in their range on the island they 

 inhabit. Most of my work on the Lepidoptera of Oahu has 

 been done in the mountains behind Waialua and to a less degree 

 in the Waianae Mountains. 



Of the stout-bodied night flying moths of the family Noc- 

 tuidae, I can report very few, but others are certainly to be 

 found. Leucania euclidias, a species remarkable for its variation 

 in colour, is of course found, as in all other mountain localities 

 throughout the islands, and is well worth examining in numbers 

 for the more beautiful and unusual varieties. Leucania ambly- 

 casis is found as far down as the plains and could no doubt be 

 taken in numbers on the flowers of the Ohia at night, as in other 

 parts of the islands. It is hardly distinguishable from the moth 

 of the "army-worm " (L. unipuncta) . Once I saw it in countless 

 thousands on those flowers, but mistaking it for the common pest 

 I took only a few examples. Agrotis dislocata and A. crinigera, 

 the produce of two of our commoner cut-worms, are naturally 

 present, and I obtained one handsome specimen of the more 

 recently described A. hephaestea. Hypenodes altivolans is com- 

 mon and worth examining for its remarkable variations in 

 colour; it comes to light and sugar, just as the very similar H. 

 costaestrigalis does in England. No other Hawaiian Noctuids 

 visit sugared trees. Nesamiptis obsoleta, an extraordinarily 

 variable species, abounds, Cosmophila noctivolans , also variable, 

 is worth collecting in series, with the allied but not endemic 



