DESCRIPTIONS Ot AUSTRALIAN ^SCHNIN^. 39 



it up and dropped it into the water, when it swam off and clung to a stick, 

 only to climb up out of the water shortly afterwards. Thus it remained for 

 some days, eating nothing. When I approached it, it appeared to be eyeing 

 me guardedly, and always slipped round to the opposite side of the stick, still 

 watching me from the corner of its projecting eye. By walking round the 

 jar I could make it circle the stick, and it never for a moment left off watching 

 me. I was irresistibly reminded of the similar habits of the monitor lizard. 



A few days later I returned home about 11 P.M., and went to look at the 

 larva. I could not find it either in the water or on the stick. A damp 

 streak showed me that it had climbed over the edge of the jar, and had 

 probably fallen off the table. A long search followed all over the room. 

 Finall}", I discovered a large spider (locally called a "tarantula''') making 

 off across the floor with a bundle done up in silk. The spider released the 

 bundle when I attacked him, and disappeared into a crevice of the wooden 

 flooring. Inside the silken bundle I discovered my larva, apparently not 

 much the worse for the adventure. I removed the silk, which stuck very 

 closely to his slimy skin, and replaced him in the aquarium, which I covered 

 over for the night. Next day I improvised a covering of mosquito-netting 

 to fit closely over the jar, and replaced him in it. 



So far the larva had eaten nothing. I now introduced live flies into the 

 jar, and had the satisfaction of finding that he ate a portion of one of these. 

 Doubtless he ate others which 1 did not see, for in a few days he grew con- 

 siderably stouter, and I saw that an ecdysis was approaching. This ecdysis 

 was carried out on the stick, out of the water, and I secured the cast skin. 



The larva now began to grow rapidly, not lengthening very much, but 

 broadening out until the thorax and abdomen were of distinctly jiEschnine 

 form. The wing-cases began to appear, and I had great hopes of rearing it. ■ 

 But an untimely end was in store, for I foolishly left the covering off the jar 

 one night; the larva made his escape, and this time doubtless the spider 

 made no mistake, for I never saw him again. The most interesting differ- 

 ences between the half-grown larva and the full-grown one, as represented 

 by the exuvise from Ebor, were the comparative slenderness of the thorax 

 and abdomen and the greater hairiness of the labium, though this latter 

 character probably does not show itself as fully on the exuvial labium as it 

 would in the living full-grown larva. The following description applies to 

 the Ebor specimen which I have before me, and which is figured in Plate 2. 

 fig. 4. 



Total lengtli 27*5 mm., greatest breadth 7 mm. across eyes. Colour very 

 dark brown, without any very apparent pattern. Head. — 5 mm. long, with 

 prominent rounded lahrimi and front, large laterally projecting eyes, and 

 large postorbital lohes rounded and irregularly notched and roughened ; 

 nearly the whole surface, except the eyes, shagreened with tiny and numerous 

 warts and dots ; occiput with an upstanding irregular tubercular ridge just 



