NEW ZEALAND LARENTIDA. AS 
combination of certain elements, but also, in many cases, the exact 
amount. So also the mathematical physicist having before him 
certain movements, can tell the precise direction and amount of 
the moving forces, and conversely having given the direction and 
the amount of the forces acting upon a body, he can predict with 
certainty the direction and amount of the resulting motion. 
“« Second, science can detect and tell beforehand many results, 
which, being of a remote and abstruse character, are entirely be- 
yond the reach of ordinary knowledge. Even savages could fore- 
tell that sufficiently rapid triction in certain circumstances would 
produce fire; but very delicate scientific instruments and experi- 
ments were necessary before it could be predicted that the me- 
chanical force exerted by a body weighing 772Ilbs., in falling 
through a foot of space, would raise the temperature of a pound of 
water exactly one degree Fahrenheit . 
‘“‘ Third, the superiority of scientific prevision appears also in 
this, that its predictions extend to events that are to be realised 
only in the far distant future. One has only to think of the transit 
of Venus, or of the eclipses of the sun calculated to the precise 
moment for hundreds of years to come, in order to realise the vast 
difference between the predictions of Astronomy and those of un- 
aided common sense. It is true that few of the sciences can as 
yet rival Astronomy.in their power of prevision ; but as this power 
increases in proportion as they attain scientific perfection, we 
have reason to expect that some of the sciences, at present in a 
comparatively backward state, may yet be able to give forth their 
predictions with a definiteness and certainty not far inferior to the 
predictions of Astronomy.” 
NEW ZEALAND LARENTID-. 
BY ALEX. PURDIE, B.A. 
PART II. 
As it is some time since the first part of this paper appeared, 
it may be well to repeat here that this is not an attempt to 
classify the Larentide, but is a compilation of the descriptions 
of the various species. 
Larentia infantaria, Guén.—The smallest of the Larentia, 
and does not exceed a Eupithecia in size. All the wings are 
silky, grey, very slightly greenish, the fringes concolorous ; 
superior traversed by many fine sinuated and toothed lines, the 
two most evident of which border the median space, which in- 
cludes two others and a dot ; behind this space the nervures are 
dotted with black and pale; inferior a little paler, unicolorous 
above with traces of lines beneath. Body grey, without mark- 
ings. Palpi sensibly produced beyond the head and forming a 
blunt triangular beak. Antenne filiform, but I think the speci- 
men. before me is a female. 
This seems to come very near Lavrentia invexata, Walk. 
Larentia diffusaria, Walk.—Female dark cinereous, somewhat 
