THE VICTORIAN NATUHALIST. 25 



■entirely different in pattern to the female, being nearly black ; 

 the female brown, marbled with chocolate lines. At Frankston 

 I had the pleasure of finding a new bombyx in April, of an 

 entirely new genus. Mr. Meyrick named it Scaedora omophones. 

 It is a minute species, allied \.o Asellus of the British Bombyces. 

 Here I have found three or four more species. Ccesa viduella, 

 somewhat allied, but a larger and less delicate insect, is 

 common on your heaths, and also occurs here. So far, I have 

 only found a few new geometers, carpet moth types, etc. But 

 my great success with geometers has been the emeralds, 

 I think Mr. Kershaw and myself got fifteen or sixteen 

 species in Victoria, not forgetting the one lodis fugitivaria 

 Gn., found by the Masters Hill at Mount Macedon, 

 and found previously in Tasmania. In my garden I take 

 Thalassodes lithocroma, Meyr. — first of all, I believe, bred by 

 Mr. Spry from native cherry. The Thalassodes insperata^ 

 the light green species, blotched with white, also found at 

 Brighton feeding with the last-named, was found in New South 

 Wales and elsewhere, but I have not seen it here. We have 

 two types of Thalassodes, the light green and the dark brown, 

 perfectly different in pattern, and reminding one of the two at 

 Brighton. Collectors have considered them the sexes of one 

 T. pieroides, Walk., though I believe Butler, of the British 

 Museum, names them as distinct. All I can say is, we collect 

 the caterpillars from rose bushes and almost every other tree, 

 and I cannot discern any difference ; and, as far as my 

 experience goes, they are always found together. The light one 

 is allied, if not identical, with the Fernshaw type. Inclusive 

 of my fourteen Victorian species, I have now got thirty species 

 of this beautiful family. One species is very lovely. The inner 

 half of the wings is scalloped out pea green ; the other half is 

 blotched with white, and at the junction of front and hind wings 

 has the appearance of three red roses carelessly tossed on. The 

 rich lichen-looking geometer, Hypochroma muscosaria, found on 

 fences in the Dandenong Ranges, and from Frankston onwards 

 to Gippsland, occurs here in September and in December. I 

 think we have more broods than occur in Victoria. 



I was somewhat interested in finding a new look-out in 

 caterpillar life. Case caterpillars are common here, as in 

 Victoria. But in two instances I have found caterpillars 

 -clothing themselves, not in loose cases, but by gumming their 

 garments on to their skins. Walking by a fence last Septem- 

 ber or October, I was surprised to see a caterpillar reminding 

 me of the Thalassodes type, but coloured like lichen. On 

 picking it up, several of the tuberosities or appendages thrown 

 out on each side came off on to my fingers. I thought I had 

 ■crushed my specimen, but on finding more I saw that the 

 creature was covered with aggregations of lichen spores, 

 :spicules, etc., and that these were fast to the skin. The only 



