NATURAL HISTORY. 
649 
head, the mandibles and claws ; the vegetating process in- 
variably proceeds from the nape of the neck, from which it 
may be inferred that the insect, in crawling to the place 
where it inhumes itself, prior to its metamorphosis, whilst 
burrowing in the vegetable soil, gets some of the minute 
spores of this fungus between the scales of its neck, from 
which, in its sickening state, it is unable to free itself, and, 
consequently, being nourished by the warmth and moisture 
of the insects body, then lying in a motionless state, they 
vegetate, and not only impede the progress of change into 
the chrysalis, but likewise occasion the death of the insect ; 
that this vegetating process thus commences during the life- 
time of the insect, appears certain from the fact of the 
caterpillar, when converted into a plant, always preserving 
its perfect form : in no one instance does decomposition 
appear to have commenced, or the skin to have contracted 
or expanded beyond its natural size. 
A plant of a similar kind was presented to me in 1837, by 
Mr. John Allan, who discovered it growing in abundance 
on the banks of the Murrumbidgee, in a rich black alluvial 
soil ; the insect in some specimens was six inches long, and 
the plant about the same length, springing like the New 
Zealand one from the nape of the neck ; in form it is quite 
different from the other, having a thick stem, crowned at the 
top with a fringe, which, when expanded, assumes the 
appearance of a full blown flower upon the surface of the 
soil, the rest being buried in the ground : this top is of a 
velvety brown texture ; many similar ones were found in the 
same locality, and numerous empty shells and holes in the 
vicinity ; at night, the number of large brown moths was so 
great as more than once to extinguish my friend's lamp ; I 
sent it to Sir W. Hooker, who has named it Sphceria Taylori . 
I have also met with alarge kind of beetle, the “ mumutaua,” 
abounding amongst the sandhills in the vicinity of the sea, 
which frequently undergoes the same vegetative change ; the 
body being completely filled with this nutlike substance; but 
in no instanee have I noticed any plant shooting from it. 
A similar caterpillar to the aweto has been found at Tara- 
