THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 185 
Park, and met with very fair. success in entomological and 
botanical collecting, particularly in the vicinity of Cook’s River. 
The plants collected included five species of wattle, and a con- 
siderable number of the plants of the district were noted in 
flower. 
Tuistte J. HARRIS, 
J. KF. BiIncHAM. 
METURA ELONGATA. 
By Mary FuLuer. 
Some months ago I had two of the caterpillars of this 
case moth in a eage together. They fed on various kinds of 
leaves, including gum, ti-tree and camphor-laurel, but ate much 
less than other caterpillars. A few nibbles out of a couple of 
leaves in each fresh supply seemed to satisfy them. 
After about three weeks, one of them died. Its case 
measured four and a half inches. Then, the other one, evident- 
ly finding its case growing too small, took the neck of the dead 
caterpillar’s case and joined it to the neck of its own, making 
a large continuous case eight and a half inches long. Crawling 
straight through, the new inmate cast out the dead body of the 
former one through the end of his case, and widened it to form 
a neck. Both eases, as usual, were strengthened with lengths 
of stick, but where the join occurred, near the centre, there 
was no wood at all. The rather clumsy puckering of the silk 
at this spot was clearly noticeable. The larva in this elon- 
gated and grotesque-looking case continued to live for about a 
month in the cage, and then died without pupating. 
I have never heard of such an instance before—the cater- 
pillar usually enlarges his case in accordance with his growth 
—and I am inclined to regard it as rather phenomenal. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRAYING MANTIS. 
By Mary Funwer. 
About the middle of February, I secured a young mantis in 
the garden, and put it in a cage in order to watch its actions 
and methods of catching its prey. It was about one inch long, 
and in the second last stage of its development when I placed 
it in the cage. Wings were lacking, and the antennae were 
very short. It made several clumsy attempts to catch a fly 
which I put in the cage, and finally sueceeded in doing so. 
