1 Aprin, 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. — 311 
(4.) (?) Tinospora smilacina, Benth.* (Plate XXII., Fig. 2.) A fourth food plant, 
to which this name is provisionally attached, is figured on Plate XII. It is of more 
slender habit than either of the others described, and the 5-nerved leaves are longer. 
The material available for description is, however, meagre, and cannot be immediately 
supplemented. J. G. Luchmann stated regarding it, and having the material figured 
alone before him:—‘‘As you correctly observe, it looks like a Menispermaceous plant 
(though it may be something else). . . . It greatly resembles Tinospora smilacina, 
but that plant does not extend as far south as Moreton Bay, and has, as a rule, 
bluater leaves.” 
The caterpillars (as also shown in the photographic illustration embodied | 
in Plate XX.) when at rest assume many strange attitudes. They may support 
themselves from one or other extremities of the body, or even hold the head 
and tail up at the same time. When resting on their abdominal feet, moreover, 
they are wont to curve their head under so that its top may come in apposition 
to their chest. When molested they may successively assume different atti- 
tudes, jerking their bodies to one side or the other; or, as usually happens, 
throw themselves to the ground. They are somewhat voracious feeders, and 
individual specimens will partake of several different species of Menisper- 
maceous plants without apparent detriment to their vitality. According to the 
observations of T. Batcheler, it would appear that many become full grown 
(full fed”) in about three weeks from the time of hatching. , 
When this event has happened, the caterpillar fastens adjacent leaves of 
its food plant together, or fragments of these, and, within the enclosure thus 
obtained, spins a very delicate cocoon of white silk, attaches itself by its tail, 
and then passes into the chrysalis state (vide Plate XXI., Fig. 1). About 
three weeks elapse before the moth emerges from its chrysalis. 
The Jast-mentioned observer is of opinion that the insects, or at least 
O. fullonica, pass the winter as moths, since he has met with much faded, 
evidently, therefore, old, specimens about as early as September; and that the 
hibernated females, laying their eggs in spring, give rise to the small brood 
that is to be met with in South Queensland in November and December. 
T, Batcheler also states that after December there is a succession of broods 
until May, straggling examples occurring up till the 18th of that month. They 
are very strong fliers, and pass with facility over long distances in quest of 
food for themselves or their young. Thus P. McLachlan records having taken 
A. materna, Linn., at sea 800 miles from Mauritius, the nearest land (Proc. 
Ent. Soc. Lond. 1877, page 5).+ 
According to the observations of T. Batcheler, both O. fullonica and 
Menas salaminia are on the wing principally between the hours of dusk and 
11 p.m.t What is the term of existence of the perfect insect is not known, 
but it has been remarked by the writer that the same insect may occur at 
night in the same spot during a period of several days. Though they may 
travel in the first instance long distances to attain food that is provided for 
them, and thus a far distant growth of a Menispermaceous food plant serve to 
afford pests for fruit trees close at hand, there are grounds for concluding that 
having once reached this goal they are addicted to remain in its neighbour- 
hood for some time, since they have been observed sheltered in dry brushwood 
in the neighbourhood of orchards, and where they could not have originated. 
On the other hand, orchards that adjoin scrubs in which Menispermaceous 
* The discovery of this plant as a food plant of Othreis fullonica is due to F. P. Dodd, to. 
whose extensive knowledge of the Lepidopterous fauna of Queensland the writer is under many 
obligations, i, 
t This facility for making long excursions, coupled with the general partiality of their cater- 
pillars for several different plants comprised within a single order—7.¢., Menispermaceze—coupled 
with the fact that such plants themselves have a wide extra-Australian range of occurrence 
_(Stephania hernandicfolia being found, according to Messrs. G. Bentham and F. Mueller, “ from 
Jastern Africa, almost all over India and the Archipelago, and northward to China,” and Peri- 
campylus incanus, also, being ‘‘common in Eastern India, India, and the Malayan Archipelago, 
extending northward to South China”—vd. ‘‘ Flora Australiensis,” Vol. I., pp. 56 and 58), explains 
the fact that the species of Ophiderine that are met with in Queensland also occur in several- 
far distant lands. i 
+ However, the moths are not attracted by light. 
