78 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
remains on the outside until she has laid all her eggs, and 
then dies. The male is about one inch across the out- 
spread wings; body dark brown. Fore wings brown, mar- 
bled with black. Hind wings yellow in centre, with a 
wide black band around the edge. Antennae, feathered. 
These caterpillars almost defoliate Quince trees at times. 
A sticky, strong-smelling Pimpla wasp parasitises num- 
bers of the larvae. 
Correction.—Australian Naturalist, January, 1915, 
p. 62, line 2 of Mr. Gallard’s paper, for ‘‘imago,’’ read 
SON weayash, : 
ON THE LARVAE OF MOTH. 
NOLA METALLOPA AND SOME LARVA HABITS. 
By C. H. Wickham. 
These larvae feed on the leaves of Eucalyptus sap- 
lings. In the younger stages they eat only the fleshy part 
of the leaf and leave the veins. I have seen entire leaves 
with only the skeleton left, looking as if they had been 
skeletonised artificially. Their method is to feed side by 
side close together, heads all the one way, and to move 
backwards as the food is consumed. When half-grown 
' they spread all over the plant and eat holes in the edges 
of the leaves. The most remarkable habit of this species 
is that, at each moult, they seem unable or do not want 
to get rid of the skin of the head along with that of the 
rest of the body. It—i.e., the head skin—remains firmly 
held by hairs on the dorsal surface of first segment, and 
at each succeeding moult it is raised by the last skin cast, 
which, of course, is larger than the previous one. So, in 
this way, after the fifth and last moult, the creature has 
a pyramid of five head-skins reducing in size to the top. 
This is supported at the back by long hairs attached 
to the body. When the larva spins its cocoon, it utilises 
the body hairs, and the pyramid of skins is left on the 
outside. An incident that occurred in one of my jars 
lately goes to show how strongly hereditary instinct is bred 
into even caterpillars. Fourteen larvae of a species whose 
name is unknown to me, hatched from a batch of eggs 
found on a gum leaf. The leaf dried up, so I cut it all 
away except the part the eggs were on. As soon as [ 
noticed the little larvae, I put a twig of gum tree with four 
