108 The Zoologist— February, 1866. 



sent from Australia by Dr. George Bennett), and read the following extract from that 

 gentleman's ' Wanderings in New South Wales ' (vol. i. p. 265) : — 



"Near this station [in the Murrurabidgee Dislrici] is a lofty table-mountain. It 

 is named Bugong Mountain, from the circumstance of multitudes of small moths, 

 called Bu^on;> by the nboiigines, congregating at certain months of the year about 

 masses of granite, on this and oiher parts of the range. The months of November, 

 December and January are quite a season of festivity among the native blacks, who 

 assemble from far and near to collect the Bugong: the bodies of these insects contain 

 a quantity of oil, and ihey are sought after as luscious and fattening food. I felt very 

 desirous of investigating the places where these insects were said to congregate in 

 such incredible quantities, and availed myself of the earliest opportunity to do so. 

 After riding over the lower ranges we arrived a short distance above the base of the 

 Bugong Mountain. This was the place where, .upon the smooth sides or crevices of 

 the granite blocks, the Bugong moths congregated in such incredible muliitudes ; but 

 from the blacks having recently been here we found but few of the insects remaining. 

 From the result of my observations it appears that the injects are only found in such 

 multitudes on isolated and peculiar masses of granite : for what purpose they thus 

 collect together is not a less curious than interesting subject of inquiry. Captain Cook 

 mentions that at Thirsty Sound he found an incredible number ol butterflies, so that 

 for the space of three or four acres the air was crowded with them ; that millions were 

 to be seen in every direction. The Bugong is doubtless the same species as that 

 observed by Captain Conk. The Bugong motiis are found on the surfaces of the 

 masses of granite, and to procure thein with greater facility the natives make smothered 

 fires underneath those rocks about which tiiey are collected, and suffocate them with 

 smoke, at the same time sweeping them off in bushels-luli at a time. A circular 

 space is cleared upon the ground, and on it a fire is lighted, and ke|)l burning until 

 the ground is considered to be sufiicitnlly healed, when, the fire being removed and 

 the ashes cleared away, the moths are placed thereon, and stirred about until the down 

 and wings are removed from them ; they are then placed on pieces of bark, and win- 

 nowed to separate the dust and wings; they are then pounded into masses or cakes, 

 resembling lumps of fat, and may be cumpared in colour and consistence to dough 

 made from smutty wheat mixed with fat : the masses will not keep good above a week 

 unless smoked, when they will keep a much longer period : the taste is that of a sweet 

 nut." 



The President referred to the account given by Dr. Livingstone, in Lis African 

 travels, of midges being made into cakes. 



Mr. F. Smith said that a correspondent of his had recently inquired of him whether 

 there was any truth in the statement that the soft-bodied little Atropos pulsatorium 

 make a tapping noise like that attributed toAnobium; and the same correspondent 

 also expressed his doubt as to Anobium making a tapping noise. On the latter point, 

 in spite of the oft-repeated and commonly received statement that the " death-watcb " 

 made a distinct tapping against (say) an old wainscot and on the outside of it, as if 

 for the purpose of notifying his presence to the female within, he (Mr. Smith) shared 

 the doubt of his correspondent, and believed that the only noise made by the Anobium 

 was caused by its gnawing the wood internally, and that there was no external tap- 

 ping at all. He had himself met with instances in which the internal gnawing of 

 wood by insects was distinctly audible, and, in particular, be mentiuued the case of a 



