Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/124

105 shoots from the nape of the neck, in rare instances from other parts of the body, very seldom from the neck and tail. (In thousands of specimens four or five of these only have come before me.) The Chrysalis is found too with one stem from the upper part, and sometimes also encircled with rings of Fungus. The burrow made by the larva is about eighteen inches deep, the direction inclined; at the mouth the Larva and Chrysalis may be seen on the least alarm to retreat with precipitation. The perfect insect is a large grey moth coming forth in April or May."

Our specimens from the Barrabool Hills appear to differ from S, Gunnii, only in being considerably smaller, as far as our own observations have extended,—in one individual the stipes rises as usual from the nape, whilst another from the same source creeps downwards to almost the whole length of the larva.

At the August meeting (1854) of the Royal Society of Tasmania, a communication was read from Mr. H. Hull, on a paragraph in the writings of Christian Franc Paulinus, in the 9th century, which states that certain trees in the island of Sombrero have large worms attached under ground in place of roots, and Mr. Hull considered this as an indication of the knowledge at that early period of some species of plant Caterpillar; any way one species S. sinensis (Berkeley) found in ThibetTibet [sic], has been described in our Pharmacopeias. It is figured in Lindley's " Vegetable Kingdom," the stipes being made up in bundles for the market. Redgood remarks of it, that it is developed on the neck of a Caterpillar, (probably an