(Plate [XIII]., fig. 8.)
This handsome species was discovered at Invercargill by Professor Hutton.
The expansion of the wings is 2¾ inches. The fore-wings are dark brown. There is an irregular white mark with a brown centre at the base, several white dots and crescentic marks near the middle, an oblique series of double crescentic marks followed by a considerably fainter series near the termen. The hind-wings are yellowish-brown; the cilia of all the wings are white, barred with dark brown. The antennæ of the male are strongly bi-pectinated.
Described and figured from a specimen in Mr. Fereday's collection.
PORINA MAIRI, Buller.
(Porina mairi, Buller, Trans. N. Z. Inst. v. 279, pl. xvii., Meyr., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xxii. 207.)
A single specimen of this fine species was discovered by Sir Walter Buller on the Ruahine Ranges, in the Wellington district, during the summer of 1867.
The expansion of the wings is about 5 inches. "Wings large, broad, front-wings produced, ovate-triangular, pale dirty testaceous; six black spots terminating veins on outer margin, and bounded by a lunated marginal white band; a submarginal series of arrow-headed black spots, and beyond these a series of rounded spots, the first four encircled with white, the rest with pale brown; two broken, black discal lines filled in with brown; a broad irregular band to below centre of wing, beyond cell, and formed of three black lines with brown interspaces; a triangular white spot below cell and a white patch terminating it and traversed by two black crosses; two diverging black bars surrounded with white in centre of cell and a third surrounded with dirty testaceous near base; a large irregular patch of whitish-brown below end of cell, bounded on internal area by three unequally formed patches which together almost form the sides of a large triangle; two small spots near base; hind-wings greyish, becoming browner towards outer margin and crossed by eight interrupted black bars."—(Buller).
The type specimen of this species was unfortunately lost in the wreck of the barque 'Assaye' in 1890. I have copied the above from Sir Walter Buller's original paper, and it may be well to point out that his description proceeds from the termen to the base, being the reverse order to that followed by me in all the other descriptions in this work.
The so-called "vegetable caterpillar" (infested with the Sphæria fungus [Cordiceps robertsii]) is, I think, very probably the larva of this insect. It was formerly supposed to be the larva of Hepialus virescens; but I have pointed out elsewhere[[68]] that this is certainly erroneous, the larva of H. virescens living in the stems of trees, and never going beneath the ground, even to pupate, whilst the "vegetable" larva is subterranean. The real point to be discovered is the precise species of Lepidoptera this caterpillar would develop into, if not attacked by the fungus; but at present no definite information has been obtained on the subject.