THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 47 



THE NEW ZEALAND VEGETABLE CATERPILLAR. 



By Frederick A. A. Skuse, Entomologist to the Australian 



Museum. 



(Communicated by Dr. E. P. Raaisay, F.R.S.E., per C. French, 



F.L.S.) 



In a paper under the above title read before the Field Naturalists 

 Club of Victoria, and appearing in the December number of the 

 Victorian Naiuj-alist, Air. Thomas Steel states that the caterpillar 

 referred to " is that of a handsome bright green moth, Hepialus 

 virescens (Roberts)." If Hepialus viresceiis, Doubl. (Dieffenbach's 

 ''New Zealand," i., 284, 114), which was formerly classified under 

 the generic title Charagia, by Walker (" Brit. Mas. Catl. Lep. 

 Het.," vi., p. 1,569), and Scott ("xAust. Lep., 1864," p. 3, and 

 "Trans. Ent. Soc, N.S.W.," ii., p. 28) really agrees in its habits 

 with the Australian members of this (now considered) sub-group 

 of Hepialus (and of this there can be little doubt), then it is 

 certainly not the caterpillar of this moth which buries itself in the 

 earth and becomes stricken with Isaria robertsii. It is well 

 known that the larvee of the Australian species of Hepialus (sub- 

 group Charagia) undergo their metamorphoses within the steins or 

 trunks of trees, vines or shrubs, &c., the mouth of the tunnel 

 being more or less concealed by a web, and do not retire into the 

 earth to become pupae. I will here reproduce a note by Dr. E. P. 

 Ramsay (who personally investigated the matter in New Zealand), 

 quoted by Scott ("Aust. Lep.," p. 14): — ^'•Charagia virescens I 

 found in abundance near the town of Auckland, New Zealand, 

 at the end of November, 1861, inhabiting various trees, among 

 others ' Mahoe' of the natives. Some of the larger trees had as 

 many as thirty habitations of the larvse in them, the butt being 

 literally studded with their abodes. Some were in the chrysalis 

 state, with the bagging over the hole torn away and the entrance 

 sealed up, as with our Australian Charagise ; but the greater 

 number were in the larval state. Those that were brought on to 

 Sydney in the chrysalis state took wing in the middle of January, 

 1862. The formation of the covering to the habitation, and the 

 way in which many of the larvae have their tubular excavations 

 running almost side by side, agree closely with the C. rauisayi. 

 All the larvae found were in the trunk and branches of the trees, 

 nroer in the roots. Mr. Huntley, residing at Wellington, and a 

 great collector or insects, asserts that the Sphceria robertsii is 

 produced from the larva of a large brown inothy Scott then 

 goes on to say : — " To these observations we may add that the 

 caterpillar of C. virescens differs as widely in form from that 

 bearing the Sphceria robertsii as do the large grey or brown moths 

 mefttioned in connection with this subject by all the authorities 



