78 THE VICTORIAN" NATURALIST. 



one occasion 178°." Such heat seems almost incredible, nor can 

 we be surprised that, in pursuing his journey, he found the 

 vegetation stunted, the eucalypts (such as Bloodwood, Gum, and 

 Mallee) being small, until he came to the Macdonnell Ranges, 

 when he found White Gum trees three feet in diameter. 

 Amongst his specimens Baron Mueller recognized E. ' setosa 

 (Schauer), E. gainophylla (F. v. M.), and a species not 

 determined. The two former, as already described by Baron 

 Mueller, are well defined, but small trees, and they serve to show 

 that, even under circumstances of difficulty. Eucalyptus can hold 

 its own. 



Various species of the genus have suffered from the ravages of 

 insects and opossums, and^ in the opinion of the late Sir W. 

 Macarthur, from fungi generated in wet and unhealthy seasons. 

 Baron Mueller in his " Eucalyptographia," has referred several 

 times to this subject. Alluding to the common Forest Gum 

 {E. tereticornis, Sm.), and the River Gum (E. rostrata, Sch.), he 

 observes that these gums, and perhaps some other species, 

 become sometimes destroyed over extensive areas by a phasma- 

 tideous insect, which, when occasionally developing in vast 

 numbers, devours the foliage of these trees so completely as to 

 cause them to die off. Sir W. Macleay, of the Linnean Society 

 of New South Wales, referred ("Transactions," 1881) this 

 insect to Podocanthus, and described the destructive creature as 

 F. wilkinsoni, it having been brought first under scientific know- 

 ledge by C. S. Wilkinson, the Government Geologist of New 

 South Wales. Mr. Wilkinson, in a letter to the Baron, confirmed 

 this statement, whilst Mr. A. W. Howitt found that in Gipps- 

 land the same trees were destroyed by an arctideous moth, 

 which, in the opinion of Sir W. Macleay, is allied to Orgyria. 

 As E. tereticornis is one of the most widely distributed species 

 on the eastern coast, ranging from Gippsland to the Gilbert and 

 Burdekin Rivers, and as E. rostrata occurs along river banks 

 beyond the Dividing Range in New South Wales, and in similar 

 situations throughout nearly the whole of Australia, these species 

 have been found more frequently than others in an unhealthy or 

 dying state from the ravages of insects. E. huprestium (F. 

 v. M.), however, of Western Australia is much infested by 

 beetles, especially that called Buprestis (from which, indeed, it 

 takes its specific name), but, according to Mr. Otto Tepper, 

 neither buprestidse, nor the gigantic and beautiful Stigmodera 

 beetle (four species of which take possession of E. uncinata, 

 Turcz.), attack the leaves, but resort to the flowers to imbibe 

 their nectar. E. odorata (Behr.), which Baron Mueller states 

 occurs along towards Spencer and St. Vincent Gulfs, and 

 thence to the Flinders Ranges, ascending Mount Brown to 2,000 

 feet elevation, is said to suffer very much from a nocturnal Melo- 



