Mr. A. S. Olliff 07i Australian Lepidoptera. 357 XLVII. — SJwrt Life-histories of nine Australian Lepidoptera. By A. Sidney Olliff, Assistant Zoologist, Australian Museum, Sydney. [Plate XX .] The following pages contain notes and descriptions of larvse observed in the immediate neighbourhood of Sydney, drawn up with the view of supplying some little information about the early stages of such species as I have succeeded in rearing during the past year. As few collectors in Australia have turned their attention to the earlier stages of the Lepidoptera, any resident entomologist with time and inclination for the work would have an almost untrodden field in this direction. Of the ten larvae which I have reared, as far as I am aware only one, namely Brunia replana, has previously been ob-served, although my larva-collecting scarcely extended beyond the limits of a single garden at Double Bay, one of the innumerable indentations of Port Jackson. Papilionidae. Papilio sa?'pedon, Linn., var. choredon, Feld. (PI. XX. fig. L) The larva when very young is of a velvety black colour, with numerous spines, somewhat resembling those of many Nymphalidffi. On the shoulders two much larger spines fringed with hairs, and two at the anal extremity pure white. As the larvse increase in size they lose the whole of the spines with the exception of two on each side of the first three segments * and the two at the tail, the colour of the insect now being of a dull sajJ-green above, merging into a bluish ashy hue on the sides ; on the third segment, between and connecting the two spines, is a bright yellow band. These colours, although decreasing in intensity and becoming finely speckled with white, are continued until the insect is full-grown. The spines, however, become smaller and the lateral band of yellowish white in the region of the stigmata much more distinct. The adult larva is robust anteriorly, gradually tapering to the tail, in length about If inch, and possesses retractile tentacula. * lu this aud the following descriptious the head is considered sepa-rately and the segmjuts are couuted aiitero-posteriorlj from one to twelve.
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