123 
Mar. 31, 1910. The Queensland Naturalist. 
of noise, and this had the effect of attracting the attention 
of a number of busy tits. They immediately gathered 
round (at a respectful distance), and made desparaging 
remarks in no measured terms. As usual in street rows, 
a crowd soon gathered, who aided and abetted the tits, 
and if I had not diverted attention by hurling a few big 
stones into the under brush, under cover of which the owl 
sailed silently down the creek, he would have had a bad 
time. 
In concluding, I express the hope that these few notes 
will meet a good deal of attention from the critics, in the 
course of which much more interesting information of this 
locality will be brought to light. Should such occur, I 
will have been amply rewarded. 
EXCURSION TO ROCKLEA, 9th OCTOBER, 1909. 
REPORT ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
Leaders : H. Tryon and E. Jarvis. 
The short time available for field-work and dry weather 
conditions constituted circumstances little conducive to 
anything but a meagre display of insect life. In the water- 
holes adjacent to the railway station, in addition to aquatic 
beetles, were seen five or six varieties of Hemiptera, 
including at least three different kinds of Water Boatmen, 
belonging to the genera Corixa and Enithares, and the 
very slender larva of a Water Scorpion, Ranatra. Under 
fallen Melaleuca occurred the common small carab-beetle, 
Gnathafhanus melanarius, and the rather diminutive 
Avelium nitidum, whilst in the decaying wood itself three 
different species of Erotylidae were encountered, including 
the red black-spotted EfiscapJmla australis — all fungus 
eaters ; also an elaterid beetle, evidently predatory on 
other insect denizens of the same material. In rather 
drier spots, but still within the area occupied by the 
paper-bark tea trees, were found, commonly amongst 
leafy debris, fine examples of the large tenebrionid beetle, 
Adelium striatum, and in the sandy soil itself, just beneath 
the surface, and ready to emerge, examples of Scitala 
and Heteronyx, the former closely resembling the scarabaeid 
beetle that is so destructive to mango blossoms at this 
time of the year. In the same situation, but where the 
leaves had given place to a grassy growth, occurred the 
chrysalis of Heteronympha merope — one of the few butter- 
flies that pass the stage in their life referred to beneath 
the surface of the ground. The imagos were flitting about 
