On being touched, it coiled itself up very rapidly and closely. This it did many times, so that it was difficult to get to see its under parts. It did not seem inclined to crawl, and was very quiet. I put it under a large bell-glass, and tried it with various leaves, but it would not eat anything; so I left it, thinking it would shortly undergo its transformation.
The tree on which I found it was a large old one, and it was on its main stem about 4 feet from the ground; how it came there was a mystery, for there were no shrubs nor plants nor even grass near,—it being the very middle of our dry season (which this year was extreme), and while the upper overhanging branches of the tree were several feet above my head.
All that day and part of the next it remained very quiet, still keeping stretched out to its full length, but not moving; it ate nothing, though on the 22nd it discharged several large pellets (fæces), of an obtuse cylindrical shape.
I kept watching it daily, and on the 25th January I found it had spun a small white web (cocoon) with which it had managed to bring together and curl down around it the edges of a large leaf of the common red geranium, fastening also the leaf pretty closely to the sheet of paper below, so that I could not get a single glimpse of the larva, although I tried many ways; but as the weather was so hot and dry, and the leaf quickly withering, I soon left off making any further attempts to observe it, fearing I might injure the larva.
Several weeks passed and no sign of its change appeared; and I was almost getting tired of making so many diurnal visits, when, on the morning of the 21st of March, I found it had emerged a perfect insect, a large moth of wondrous beauty! I do not think that it had left its pupa-case during the night, as there was but a very small amount of its long downy covering about the glass; for had it done so, being a nocturnal creature and of a large size, it would surely have knocked itself about a good deal in its vain attempts to get out.
I may truly say that I gazed on it with pleasure and astonishment; fcr though I had pretty largely known our New Zealand Lepidoptera (having collected many hundreds of species some 25–40 years ago)[1] I had never before seen one like this. It differs too, very considerably from our British species, although I thought I had formerly seen something not altogether unlike it in books. There, however, it was, a handsome large black moth, forming almost an equilateral triangle of 1″.6‴ as it remained at rest. I
- ↑ I may here mention that the moth described in Dr. Dieffenbach's work on New Zealand, Vol. II., p. 284, (Hepialus) was also raised by me from larvæ which I had fed on kumara leaves, much to the annoyance of the Maoris in those times, who made a great fuss and objection to my so doing. (See note at end.)
