PRKSIDENT S ADDRESS. IX. 



imdescribed species during a week's visit there last December and bis collecting 

 was confined entirely to tbe Digger's Creek Valley. On this same trip I secured 

 two new records of butterflies for the Plateau, and though I have made many 

 new discoveries during visits to this district during the months of December, 

 January, February, and March and have partially surveyed the Plateau as far 

 as the butterflies are concerned, I have not by any means yet exhausted it even 

 for such a well known group. I would welcome an extended entomological sur- 

 vey of this district carried out on thoroughly systematic lines, for a wealth of new 

 discoveries is indicated, and many of these would be of great help in elucidating 

 the Physiography of Australia in times past. The curious net-veined midges 

 (Blepharoceridae) found there last November by Dr. Tillyard and Mr. Nicholson 

 are of great interest, especially as they are not capable of life at any distance 

 from swiftly running water. Further specimens of a most interesting Dragonfly 

 with afSnities to a Chilian species have also been taken there by Mr. Goldfinch 

 and myself. The investigation of the insect fauna at an elevation of 4000 ft. 

 and over is of gi-eat importance, for there the remnants of the older species are 

 to be found. In the past, in order to accomplish the greatest amount of work 

 in the shortest possible time, I examined our coastal areas, for buttei-flies, as 

 species, though not necessarily individuals, were more plentiful there, and as a 

 result I have now a fairly clear idea of the distribution of the butterflies along 

 the coast of Eastern Australia; but the ease of the mountain ranges, to which I 

 have turned my attention during the last few years, is far different, though here 

 the species are fewer and individuals more plentiful. Our knowledge is still 

 far from complete, many of the higher levels being difficult of access; I propose 

 later on in the year to prepare an account of the butterfly fauna of our alpine 

 regions as we now know it. 



An Account op Some Breeding Experiments with the Satyrine 

 Genus Tisiphone. 



During the past few years I have been carrying out a series of breeding 

 experiments with the Satyrine genus Tisiphone using the races abeona and 

 morrisi mainly with the idea of proving or disproving whether a third race, T. 

 abeona joanna, was a natural hybrid. For the scientific portion of my address 

 I propose to give a short account of the; course of these experiments and some 

 of the results to date. 



Tisiphone jocmna Butler was described in 1866 (Enodia joanna, Ann. Mag. 

 Nat. Hist., 1866, p. 286) and from that date until 1913 no specimens of it 

 appear to have been taken in Australia, nor had I been able to find any in 

 Australian collections. In October, 1913, on a trip to Port Macquarie with 

 Mr. C. HJedley, I secured over one hundred specimens of this form and have 

 figured some of them (Aust. Zoologist, i. pt. 1, 1914, PI. 1; The Butterflies of 

 Australia, PL 39). In October, 1914, I captured another long series, and on 

 two other occasions (January and March, 1918) further specimens were ob- 

 tained. The tremendous variation in these specimens is shown by the series on 

 Plate ii., all from the very limited area within eight miles of Port Macquarie, 

 where, out of some 300 specimens, no two were exactly alike. Some showed 

 a close resemblance to the broad, orange-banded southern form, others a 

 similarity to the narrow, white-banded northern form, and I came to the con- 

 clusion that at Fort Macquarie there existed a natural hybrid that had had 

 neither the time nor the opportunity to become stabilised. There are no barriers 



