An abundant species round Nelson, where almost any number may be taken hovering over flowers on a still summer's evening. In Wellington it occurs occasionally. The larva (Fig. 8a) is a pseudo-geometer, having twelve legs, and thus showing a strong affinity with the next family. In colour it is pale green, darker on the dorsal surface than elsewhere. A white line runs down each side, and the whole insect is covered with black dots and bristles. The colouring of different individuals varies in intensity, and a fainter white line, above the usual one, exists in some specimens. It feeds on beans, geraniums, and many other imported plants, and is doing much good in the Nelson gardens by the havoc which it is committing among the Scotch thistles--weeds equally injurious to the agriculturalist and the gardener, not only crowding out useful plants, but rapidly exhausting the soil in which they grow. Formerly this insect must have fed exclusively on the New Zealand {83}nightshade (_Solanum aviculare_), on which plant it may still be occasionally found in the forest, where no imported species are available, but, like many other caterpillars in this country, it is forsaking the native vegetation for the European. When full-grown, this larva spins a slight cocoon of white silk, which is generally placed between two leaves. The pupa is of a shiny black colour, the membrane between the segments being reddish-brown. The moth emerges in about three weeks' time. The figure (8) is taken from a female insect, the male being readily distinguishable by two large tufts of hair situated at the end of his body and often very conspicuous. In some cases the wings of the female are considerably lighter than in the illustration, but otherwise the species does not seem to vary. It is the New Zealand representative of the English "Silver Y Moth" (_P. gamma_), no doubt familiar to many of my readers. Family GEOMETRIDÆ. _Declana floccosa_ (Plate XI., fig. 1, 1a larva).