440 
TASMANIA 
three others were seen on board; the species is confined to Australasia. 
It was dark when we entered the fine harbour, and I was gratified 
to see the skill with which the ship’s officers worked the signal 
lamps—a new accomplishment in the mercantile marine—the 
blinking light of a man-of-war at anchor being at once answered in 
the Morse code by our own. One of the junior officers presently 
brought me word that my son’s ship, H.M.S. “ Challenger,” was at 
Wellington. 
It was pleasant the next morning to land for a day ashore. We 
chartered a carriage for Mt. Wellington, though the cloud on its 
summit looked anything but promising. There is naturally great 
interest attaching to the capture of the first Butterfly in a new 
continent; accordingly on catching sight of one in a promising wild 
spot on the hillside some way above the town we called a halt. A 
fine golden-brown Satyr appeared to be not uncommon flying about 
quickly among tall bushes of a heath-like shrub, and from time to 
time settling upon the ground. They proved to be males of Hetero- 
nympha merope , Eabr., common to Tasmania and Australia. After 
many a chase four were secured; they yielded a faint scent of a 
sweet treacly character. The only other Lepidopterous insect was 
the large handsome Crambid, adorned with silver streaks, Talis 
argyroneurus , Zell., also peculiar to Australia and Tasmania, of which 
three specimens were taken. On the flowers of what I took to be a 
shrubby Antennaria were two Lycid beetles, Porrostoma rufipennis , 
Eabr., and Calochromus scutellaris, Erich., and a Lady-bird Coccinella 
conformis , Boisd., together with abundance of the small brown and 
black Chafers, Phyllotocus rufipennis, Boisd. We then pushed on 
to the Fern Tree Hotel, but meanwhile the clouds had come down 
to meet us, bringing rain of a hopeless character. The small 
Boarmiid, Emmiltis rwbraria , Doubl., was kicked up, and searching 
the trunks of the gum-trees, while seeking shelter from the rain, 
yielded Scoparia syntaracta, Meyrk., Scoparia gomphota, Meyrk. (an 
insect of which the British Museum possesses but two specimens, 
from Tasmania), also a NudariaASk.% moth, Thallarcha sp.; this was 
originally in fine condition, but the pill-box in which it was confined 
had been previously tenanted by a slug, and the little moth spoiled 
its wings with some of the slime left behind by the mollusc. This 
was the more unfortunate since it turned out that there was but a 
single worn individual (also from Tasmania) in the National 
Collection, and Sir George Hampson does not consider either 
specimen good enough to describe. 
Of Beetles there was no great variety, but Adelium abbreviatum, 
