ZOOLOGICAL NOTES FROM SYDNEY. 353 



manner so characteristic of the Termites. While speaking of 

 excavations, it might not be amiss to mention another instance. 

 One day I was out in the vicinity of Curl Curl (near Sydney), 

 when I suddenly observed half-way up the stem of a young 

 eucalypt a very round hole — in fact, it was the great symmetry 

 which chiefly attracted my attention. Upon breaking down the 

 stem, and cutting very carefully, I found the workmen within — 

 the beautiful Carpenter Bees (Lestis csratus). Now, the most 

 interesting part of this, is, that it points to an aberration of habit, 

 in accordance with which these Bees usually burrow into the 

 flowering stems of the "grass-tree" {Xanthorrhoea) . Did they 

 mistake this small stem — of the same thickness as a grass-tree 

 stem — for the Xanthorrhoea f With about half the labour involved 

 in cutting the eucalypt, they could have burrowed three times as 

 far in the Xanthorrhoea. 



Some time ago, while I was on one of my periodical trips to 

 my happy hunting-ground — Manly — I was turning over the stones 

 on the border of the bush above the shore, when, amongst other 

 things, I came across several specimens of a large Millipede 

 (Julus). This Millipede has a row of orifices along each side, 

 one in the middle of each somite, from which, when irritated, it 

 ejects a brownish-coloured fluid (in appearance much resembling 

 iodine), which possesses an exceedingly penetrating pungent 

 odour, very irritating indeed to the mucous membrane lining the 

 nasal passages. But the supply of this fluid — which, scarcely 

 without doubt, is for purposes of defence — seems to become very 

 soon exhausted, as, after I had kept the Arthropods for a short 

 time, scarcely any of the former odour was perceptible. Under 

 this same stone I found specimens of a beautiful little Lizard 

 (Lygosoma cequale), having very short, almost rudimentary legs, 

 and truncate, though long, tail. 



A little farther along this shore is a large rock-pool, which I 

 often visit. In it I made rather a unique discovery in the shape 

 of a specimen of the Gastropod Hydatina physis in the act of 

 oviposition. The animal itself is beautiful, but the spiral ribbons 

 of eggs, embedded as they were in a transparent jelly-like proto- 

 plasmic substance, were, in point of intrinsic beauty, equal to 

 anything that I have ever observed. Molluscan ova are, of 

 course, often to be met with ; but unfortunately, in very many 

 cases, without any satisfactory clue to the species to which they 



