WELLINGTON 
465 
one of New Zealand, and in particular is taking steps to secure 
long series of the many very variable moths of the islands. But 
there was a greater pleasure in store for me: a night’s sugaring 
with Mr. Hamilton himself, his son, and a Coleopterist whose name 
has escaped me. The scene of our operations was the wilder part of 
the Botanical Garden, where the treacle and rum had been spread 
upon the stems of the numerous Tea-trees. Part of the round was 
new, part old. Moths were there in swarms; we must have seen 
more than a thousand. Since many of them were new to me I was 
as excited as a beginner, yet quite bewildered, not knowing what 
to catch and what to leave. 
My now familiar friend, Persectania ewingi, was far and away the 
commonest moth, and may perhaps have made up three-fourths of the 
whole number, it was accompanied by a couple of *P. atristriga, 
a very distinct species. The great genus Morrisonia is best repre¬ 
sented in New Zealand, although there are a few North American 
forms; that night I met with * M. insignis and * M. mutans, both 
extremely variable species; the somewhat indefinite * M. lignana, 
and the more distinct * M.prionistis ; also several new acquaintances: 
* M. ustistriga, Walk.; * M. ochthistis, Meyrk. ( vitiosa , Hudson, nee 
Butler), and the pretty green * M. plena, Walk., which was among 
the commonest. With all these genuine New Zealanders there was 
a single straggler of the almost cosmopolitan Cirphis unipuncta, 
which occurs in every continent with the exception of Africa. The 
Deltoids were represented by one * Bliapsa scotosialis. 
With * Coremia semisignata was to be seen the much less common 
* Pasiphila inductata, Walk.; I also secured an example of * JDeclana 
floccosa, Walk., one of a most interesting genus peculiar to New 
Zealand; they are fair-sized robust insects, whose fore-wings, both 
as regards their shape and the numerous raised scales, at once bring 
to mind Peroneids of the genus Leptogramma, their shaggy look being 
quite unlike that of any other Geometers of my acquaintance. 
But Lepidoptera were not the only insects found on the sugared 
stems. There were sundry small cryptic Longicorns: * Somatidia 
antarctica, White, and other beetles. Then there were large Tipulae 
of a bright green colour. Among the Orthoptera, besides the Cock¬ 
roaches, Gutilia sedilloti and Allacta latipennis, Brunn., two of 
each, were numerous individuals of the far more striking—not to 
say alarming—wingless Locustids, the huge * Deinacrida megacephala, 
Buller, called by the Maoris “ Weta.” One of them when taken was 
in the act of devouring a hapless * Morrisonia mutans , and finished 
up its carcass on the way home in the pill-box. Although a much 
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