Visit to the Di(jgi7igs, 



5909 



the pointing at right angles is, however, described as invariable : it is 

 the larva of a large short-horned sawfly, Perga bella.] 



During the summer I frequently found a forbidding-looking carni- 

 vorous beetle, velvety black with white spots : it runs over the trunks 

 of trees, and is especially fond of prying into the crevices of the bark, 

 seizing and devouring every insect it can find : its voracity is bound- 

 less. Often on lifting up a piece of loose bark I have found it 

 fastened on a poor longicorn thrice its own size, and eagerly engaged 

 in devouring its inside while the poor creature was still living: com- 

 mon as was this sight it always reminded me of some poor antlered 

 stag in the death-grip of a wolf or deer-hound. Vain are the strug- 

 gles of the poor Cerambyx when once this creature has fixed its 

 formidable jaws in its thorax or abdomen. I have often found on the 

 ground, or in the pools, the splendid Lamprima reduced to a mere 

 shell by this savage enemy, and dropped from high up the trunk of a 

 giant Eucalyptus. 



I spoke of the enormous flight of Pieris Teutonia which I wit- 

 nessed in 1852. I looked in vain for a similar phenomenon at the 

 same period of the following year ; two or three specimens at a time 

 were all that I saw. The number of butterflies, that is of species, 

 seems small in proportion to other insects, and these by no means 

 handsomer or more brightly coloured than European species. The 

 Noctuina are inferior to our own ; there w^as nothing so beautiful as 

 our Thyatira batis and derasa, our Aplecta herbida and Miselia april- 

 ina, but the Bombycina were more beautiful, and the Micro-Lepi- 

 doptera far surpassed ours both in size and brilliancy of colours. I 

 captured many that were previously unknown to Science, particularly 

 of the genus Q^icophora. 



The Coleoptera are for the most part new, and often very handsome 

 species : besides those 1 brought home I found the beautifully marked 

 elytra of others floating in the pools, the perfect insects never having 

 been found alive. I think the short twilight, the rapid transition from 

 day to night, renders it difficult to find many of the species, both of 

 Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, alive. I was particularly struck with the 

 extraordinary manner in which the feet of many of the larger weevils, 

 Curculionida?, are cushioned or padded : this is evidently designed to 

 enable them to w^alk over the trunks and branches of the smooth- 

 skinned Eucalypti. I shall never forget the exclamation of one of my 

 assistants when 1 pointed out to him this curious structure : I'll be 

 hanged," says he, " if the beetle has not got pattens on." 



Several times 1 tried sugaring for Lepidoptera, but never succeeded. 



