174 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



district traversed, they would almost certainly have been noticed 

 under some of the numberless logs upturned by one or another of 

 the party. Strangely, 'also, the specimens taken were nearly all 

 males, as is true of the examples of the other species of the same 

 genus, Lissotus cancroides. It grows dark as we come down 

 Rubbly Hill into Marysville, which is perhaps just as well, as the 

 choice of our wardrobes is somewhat limited, and our clothes not 

 so new or entire as when we left the hotel eight days before. We 

 did ample justice to Mrs. Keppel's well-stocked table. 



ist December. — Our party now begins to break up, some 

 of us having to return to Melbourne ; the rest spend an hour or 

 two at the Stevenson Falls photographing, and then turn home- 

 wards along the Healesville road. The weather is at last all 

 that could be wished for, and makes the tramp delightful. Just 

 after leaving Marysville our coleopterist shakes into his umbrella 

 a large Geometer Moth, with drab upper wings and pink lower 

 ones with a large blue-black spot underneath. This moth is 

 unknown at the National Museum, but probably belongs to the 

 genus Chlenias. A caterpillar, presumably of the same, captured 

 with the moth, has since turned into the chrysalis, but has not yet 

 emerged. Passing the cemetery, the gum forest becomes some- 

 what monotonous for a few miles until the Acheron is reached. 

 The mania for ringing the trees seems to have come upon the 

 owners of the land on the hill above the river ; and very soon 

 what was formerly a thick forest will become a dreary hillside of 

 gaunt dead trunks, whitening in the sunlight. Some little way 

 across the river, and close to where the Buxton road passes off, 

 is a fine patch of Leptospermum myrsinoides in full flower ; our 

 coleopterist advances joyfully, umbrella in hand and twinkle in 

 his eye, thinking that at last his time has come ; he shakes vigor- 

 ously, and secures for his reward plenty of dead flowers and leaves, 

 but not a single insect. However, the collecting is not all in vain, 

 for some very good specimens of different genera are found else- 

 where, especially of Clerus, with Elaters and a few Longicorns. 



Passing on, the Piping Crow Shrike is noted, with the 

 Rufous-fronted Fantail, the Shining Flycatcher, and Black-faced 

 Grauculus, and the note of the Coach-whip Bird is heard. A 

 specimen also of the Common Porcupine (Echidna hystrix) is 

 captured, and two of the lizard, Cyclodus nigro-htteus, which are 

 carried home alive. The only snake seen is a single example of 

 the Copperhead ( Hoplocephalus superbus), which unfortunately 

 escapes into the grass alive from the side of the road, where it 

 had been basking in the sunshine. 



Soon Narbethong is reached, and then begins the ascent of 

 the Black Spur. At first the road rises gradually, and then more 

 steeply, until we come to the region of tall gums, and look 

 through a clearing in the trees miles away to the north, over the 





