RECOLLECTIONS OF AUSTRALIAN

ENTOMOLOGY.

IF Australia has, occasionally, been spoken of in a more or less disparaging manner, because of the paucity, in actual numbers, as well as in species, of its Mammalia, and, in a less degree, of its birds; the same cannot be said of its insecs, whose numbers and tribes, flying, crawling, and swimming, absolutely defy computation; as anyone who has ever resided in, or travelled for a couple of days through any of the " Bush," is but too well aware.

I say "too well," because they are unpleasant, some of these insects-exceedingly so, in fact, to every sense; some of them being positively terrifying, so strange and weird, not to say unnatural, are their forms; whilst others are dangerous in the highest degree, bearing, as they do, almost certain destruction to their adversaries in their heads or tails. Others, however, are interesting from their habits, others from the periodicity that marks their appearance and disappearance; others from peculiar forms, which simulate twigs, grass, or leaves; others from the gorgeous livery they wear, and others again, from all these peculiarities combined.

In this article, I purpose to consider, briefly, a few of the more remarkable species of insects with which I became acquainted during a lengthened sojourn in the great Southern Land, beginning with that widely diffused persecutor of all new arrivals, the mosquito.

Some years ago I remember reading a story that went the round of the newspapers, to the effect that an officer of some regiment, stationed at Sydney, had sent one of these pests home to his daughter in England in a letter, and that whilst engaged in perusal the young lady had felt a sharp puncture on the wrist, and upon glancing at the spot, beheld a golden fly that escaped before it could be secured. As the letter informed her of the nature of its enclosure, the golden fly was at once identified as the Australian mosquito. I need scarcely dilate upon the improbability of the story. Of course, it was utterly impossible for the insect-a particularly fragile creature-to have survived the pressure to which it must necessarily have been subjected in the mail-bag; and, unfortunately, so far from being a "golden" fly, the mosquito is very plainly dressed; being, in point of fact, neither more nor less

than a full cousin to the well-known gat, so familiar to everyone who rambles of a summer's evening through the greem lanes of old England, where it may be seen disporting in myriads, beneath the grateful shade of the overhanging trees and hedges: the only difference being, that its English congener rarely bites, whereas the Australian insect is one of the most bloodthirsty little abominations in existence.

During the great heat of the day the mosquito, wisely, keeps under cover; but once the sun has disappeared beneath the horizon out he comes from his retirement, with keenest appetite, and pounces with unerring aim upon his prey. You may shut up your tent as closely as you please, you cannot keep him out; you may hang mosquito-curtains round your bed and fancy yourself free from his attacks; pooh! he laughs at your vain precautions, and no sooner have you extinguished your candle and settled yourself down-as you think-for a comfortable sleep, than "bizz!" the horrible sound is heard in painful proximity to your ear, and presently a sharp prick, probably on the side of your nose, announces that war has actually begun. You have nothing for it but to re-light your candle, and hunt your foe to death; unless you prefer, like a friend of mine, to allow him to sate himself with your blood; which done, he will retire to rest, and be found next morning clinging to your curtain, a bloated little vampire, too heavy to fly, and will then fall an easy prey to your avenging finger. There is one drawback, however, to this course of proceeding; the longer the mosquito sucks, the bigger and more painful will be the tumour that arises round the puncture he has made; so as I remarked before, you must declare war, and war to the death, at once, with your tiny but implacable foe.

The mosquito neither bites during the middle of the day, nor the middle of the night, but just before and after sunrise and sunset he is on the alert, and positively ubiquitous. The deepest shaft in Ballarat, or the closest room in Melbourne or Geelong are alike familiar with his presence; the margins of rivers and creeks, and clumps of bush fifty or more miles from water, he frequents them all alike; town and country they are the same to him; mountain, valley, or wooded plain, or barren table-land, he has no more predilection for the one than the other; nay, he has even been met with ten miles out at sea. If he cannot get at you by any other means, he will be down upon you through the chimney; and if that is stuffed, which can scarcely be done without placing you in some danger of suffocation, it will go hard for him but he will find an entrance somewhere, and a pin-hole will afford him ample means of ingress.

The "old hands" assert that the mosquito only bites "new

chums," as they term recent arrivals at the colonies; but all I can say is that he feasted on me as eagerly at the end of seven years' residence, as he did at the beginning. But I am not quite sure whether or not that lapse of time entitles me to consider myself an old hand; the mosquitoes, evidently, did not seem to think it did.

Another almost insupportable pest are the flies, which are so numerous and troublesome that an acquaintance of mine pronounced the fourth Egyptian plague endemic in Australia. Be that as it may, these abominable insects-which vary in size from the tiniest little blue midge imaginable, celebrated for the pertinacity with which it insists on getting into the corners of your eyes, down to the enormous red, bloated-looking, meat-flies, as big as a humble bee, which oblige you to keep the closest watch over your provisions, are almost as bad as, if not worse than, the mosquitoes. It is next to impossible to keep anything out of their way; I have seen mutton spoiled by them in less than a quarter of an hour, after it had been killed, and could tell tales of these creatures and their larvæ, that would make one's hair to stand on end; but, as I do not wish to disgust anyone, I forbear. The intermediate kinds, or sizes of fleas are not particularly different from those we see at home; they are just as inquisitive, familiar and just as annoying as their relatives in this country, with whom I really think they must occasionally intermarry; for in the ship that carried me to Europe from Melbourne we had their delightful company all the way in the saloon, though where they came from no one could make out. They were cunning, too, and would not be lured by any bribe of peppered sugar to their destruction, but stuck by us to the last, though they retired from observation during the cold weather at the Cape Horn, to re-appear some weeks before we cast anchor in the Mersey. It is a curious fact that the further you go into the bush the more numerous do the meat-flies become. They are comparatively scarce in Melbourne; but it is just the reverse with the house-flies, whose name in the town is legion, whilst up the country they are found in moderate numbers, and in some places not at all.

There is another domestic insect, remarkable for its agility, which thrives wonderfully in Australia; and with true democratic insolence, makes itself quite as much at home in the Honorable Mr. Goldbags' sumptuous residence, as in the meanest hut of the poorest digger at the mines.

Australia does not possess many butterflies. A few grey and brown, insignificant-looking little things, were the only representatives of that class of insects with which I chanced to become acquainted in the bush; but there are a great many varieties of moths.

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Wonderful-looking creatures are some of these: some, when at rest, so exactly resemble a withered leaf that you would never suppose them to be anything else, unless you chanced to see them move, which they are very careful not to do whilst you are standing by. The only thing that betrays them is the phosphorescent glare of their eyes, which shine, even in daylight, like little carriagelamps, and are, positively, tiny meteors in the dark. Another species, a tremendous brown fellow, is very nearly as large as a sparrow, and comes with a thump against your window.

"I recollect meeting with the pupa of one of these insects, one day, as it was working its way out of the ground, preparatory to casting off its chrysalis shell, and completing its metamorphosis. I mistook it, at first sight, for the cone of some species of pine, and under that impression stooped to pick it up, wondering where such a thing could possibly have come from in that land of gumtrees and acacias; it was fully five inches in length, and the moment it felt my hand, wriggled back into its hole, greatly to my amazement, so I proceeded to dig it out with my knife, and in so doing must have wounded it, for it bled a good deal afterwardsa colourless, ichory kind of blood--and never came to anythingHowever, I fell in with plenty of the creatures afterwards, and was told by a Cornish acquaintance that they were Buskum Sneevers, a name I had never heard before, and of which I greatly doubt whether I caught the true pronunciation.

Australia possesses several kinds of native bees; and it is a curious fact that these useful and laborious insects-I mean, of course, the European variety-seldom succeed well in that country -at least, in any part of it where I have resided. They either fly away into some unknown region, or, if they remain with their owners, refuse to work. The reason appears to be that the climate is so fine, flowers so plentiful all the year round, and so large a quantity of "manna" is secreted by several varieties of Eucalyptus, that they grow lazy and idle. Why should we toil when we can live without fatiguing ourselves?" seems to be their mode of reasoning; whether or not, they act as if it were, and lay up no provision for the winter that never comes. Perhaps they are led astray by the bad example of the native bees, which are thorough vagabonds, destitute of stings, and lead an erratic, merry life, flitting from flower to flower, and from sweet to sweet, all the day long, and taking no thought for the morrow, like the human aborigines; though, unlike them, they invariably have a fixed dwelling-place, to which, however, they only resort at night.

From bees to wasps the transition is natural and easy; some of the latter are tremendous fellows-one, especially, a handsome blue insect, with great gauzy wings, is nearly two inches in length,

and carries a sting fully a quarter of an inch in length, with which it attacks even small birds.

I once watched a strange combat between one of these creatures and a large tarantula, which terminated tragically for the latter, in spite of his powerful arms and formidable jaws. The tarantula was quickly walking down the side of a smooth blue-gum tree, probably on the look-out for prey. I had had an eye on him for some time, and was meditating an attack-for I had no desire to see him about my premises-when I suddenly beheld him drop as if he had been shot, or galvanised, or something of the kind. I expected to see him fall to the ground, but he did not; he had thrown out a thread, upon which he swung at a distance of a foot below the spot where I had first perceived him; at the same instant something whizzed past me, and flew straight at the tarantula, which wheeled round, still hanging by his thread, and caught it in his long, hairy arms, which he clasped tightly round it, whatever it was, for a few seconds; then, relaxing his hold, he permitted a large blue wasp to fly away; it soon, however, returned to the charge, was again embraced and again released by the tarantula, but after a shorter interval than at the first encounter. This was repeated several times, and at length the gigantic spider fell to the ground, dead-slain by the more potent venom of its foe, which seemed to have suffered no inconvenience whatever from the apparently formidable embrace of its victim.

That Australia is a land of paradoxes-a reputation it has long enjoyed-could not, I think, be better exemplified than by a comparison between the spiders of our own country and those that are most commonly met with at our Antipodes; where, reversing the natural order of things, the fly preys upon the spider, and not the spider on the fly. A man I knew on the goldfields used to be greatly annoyed by a loud, intermittent buzzing in his tent, which, for a long time, he was quite unable to trace to its source; but at length discovered that it was caused by a large black fly, striped with bright yellow traverse bands, which had taken up its abode beneath his table; and a curious abode it was, as I can testify, for I was by when he discovered it.

Upon examining the table, as soon as we had found out from whence the noise proceeded, we discovered on its under surface a large patch of hard yellow clay, which must have been brought from a considerable distance, as there was none at all resembling it anywhere in the neighbourhood. Upon breaking up this patch, we found it to be hollow, and divided into several chamberssixteen, as well as I remember-each filled up with a number of small spiders of various kinds, not dead, but paralysed; and, in addition, each cell contained an egg or grub of the fly; the spiders,