184 Transactions. — Zoology. 



He informs me that whenever he has seen the butterfly it has been flying 

 high, but not swiftly, in sunny sheltered jjlaces among trees, and settling on 

 them. He also saw it travelling fast over the country along the coast. The 

 first he saw early in November, and the last he took the first week in April. 

 All the Maoris to whom he showed the butterfly said they knew it, and the 

 old Maoris say it is called " kakahu," and is in some years very plentiful. The 

 caterpillar, they tell him, was very plentiful this year, and feeds iipon the 

 pollen of the gourd which they grow in that part of the country (Hawke Bay). 

 They are unanimous in saying that the buttei-fly was there before any white 

 man came, and the Rev. W. Colenso, of Hawke Bay, told Mi'. Meinertzhageu 

 that he saw it there many years ago. 



Having heard that his neighbour, Mr. Nairn, had been feeding some new 

 kind of caterpillar found in his garden, Mr. Meinertzhageu wrote to him and 

 obtained three pupse, which he describes as short and stumpy, of a pale gi-een 

 colour, and dotted with gold spots on the edge of the pai-t which covers the 

 wings. The Maori to whom he showed them recognized them as the pupse of 

 the Danais. Unfortunately the rats got at and destroyed them. 



Mr. Nairn sent him a coloured sketch of the ctiterpillar, and said he had 

 made the sketch entirely from memory and was unable to give the exact 

 proportions of the caterpillar or its number of legs ; that it had two horns or 

 feelers on its head, and they appeared to be in continual motion. He describes 

 the shrub on which he found the caterpillar as the Gomphocarpus ovata, one of 

 the milk-producing plants, and a native of the Cape of Good Hope. The cater- 

 pillar is represented in the drawing as black, with the joints of the segments 

 yellow, and some white spots on the head and second segment. Two rather long 

 tentacles or appendages appear to rise and project from the second segment or 

 back part of the head, and a caudal horn from the last segment. 



I am not aware of any record of this species of butterfly having been 

 captured before in New Zealand, but, as I have already stated, the Hawke 

 Bay Maoris and Mr. Colenso testify to its appeai-ance in former years. 



That the butterfly has been " introduced " into New Zealand, or even into 

 New South Wales (as intimated by Mr. French), seems to me extremely 

 improbable. 



If introduced it must have been either purposely or accidentally. That it 

 has been purposely introduced T think no one will credit without some record 

 of such introduction. That it has been accidentally introduced I think equally 

 improbable, and, as to New Zealand, next to impossible, considering the 

 distance it would have to travel over the ocean, and the extraordinary 

 combination of favourable circumstances that must have arisen before it could 

 possibly have become established in such locality. 



And why should this bxitterfly be thought to have been introduced any 



