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Rh manner so characteristic of the Termites. While speaking of excavations, it might not be amiss to mention another instance. One day I was out in the vicinity of Curl Curl (near Sydney), when I suddenly observed half-way up the stem of a young eucalypt a very round hole—in fact, it was the great symmetry which chiefly attracted my attention. Upon breaking down the stem, and cutting very carefully, I found the workmen within—the beautiful Carpenter Bees (Lestis æratus). Now, the most interesting part of this, is, that it points to an aberration of habit, in accordance with which these Bees usually burrow into the flowering stems of the "grass-tree" (Xanthorrhœa). Did they mistake this small stem—of the same thickness as a grass-tree stem—for the Xanthorrhœa? With about half the labour involved in cutting the eucalypt, they could have burrowed three times as far in the Xanthorrhœa.

Some time ago, while I was on one of my periodical trips to my happy hunting-ground—Manly—I was turning over the stones on the border of the bush above the shore, when, amongst other things, I came across several specimens of a large Millipede (Julus). This Millipede has a row of orifices along each side, one in the middle of each somite, from which, when irritated, it ejects a brownish-coloured fluid (in appearance much resembling iodine), which possesses an exceedingly penetrating pungent odour, very irritating indeed to the mucous membrane lining the nasal passages. But the supply of this fluid—which, scarcely without doubt, is for purposes of defence—seems to become very soon exhausted, as, after I had kept the Arthropods for a short time, scarcely any of the former odour was perceptible. Under this same stone I found specimens of a beautiful little Lizard (Lygosoma æquale), having very short, almost rudimentary legs, and truncate, though long, tail.

A little farther along this shore is a large rock-pool, which I often visit. In it I made rather a unique discovery in the shape of a specimen of the Gastropod Hydatina physis in the act of oviposition. The animal itself is beautiful, but the spiral ribbons of eggs, embedded as they were in a transparent jelly-like protoplasmic substance, were, in point of intrinsic beauty, equal to anything that I have ever observed. Molluscan ova are, of course, often to be met with; but unfortunately, in very many cases, without any satisfactory clue to the species to which they