Family 6. Skippers. HESPERIDAE. These butterflies are popularly known as “Skippers” on account of the peculiar way they fly, so different from all the other groups. They have broad, short, thickset heads and bodies; and the antennae, wide apart at the base, are produced at the tip into an irregular club or pointed hooked process. The legs are perfect in both sexes and often spined; most of them are brown or reddish yellow, more or less variegated. The larvae are long, cylindrical, naked caterpillars, with the head hard and horny; the prothorax narrow, forming a regular neck. When full grown they attach themselves by the tail to the leaf, which they roll round themselves into a primitive kind of cocoon. Messrs. Meyrick and Lower have lately revised this group (Trans. Roy. Soc. S.A. 1902), and list 79 species that they identify, and note a number of others that are so badly described that they cannot be determined. _Netrocoryne repanda_, one of our largest species, of a uniform light brown tint, has the tips of the wings darkest, the centres of the fore pair marked with large translucent blotches of a pale yellow tint, and a single spot in each hind one. It has an extended range from Sydney to N. Queensland. The Genus _Hesperilla_ contains 31 species, some of which are very local, while others have a very wide range: _H. picta_ is about 2 inches across the wings; its general colour is dark brown with a dull greenish tint on the body, ornamented with five yellow spots on the fore wing; the centres of the hind ones and the hind margins of the same yellow colour, and with the markings on the under surface more numerous. _H. ornata_ is a smaller species, of a general dark brown; the fore wings carry a number of spots and four angular golden yellow blotches; the hind pair are reddish orange mottled on the under surface of the body, the tips of the fore and the whole of the hind wings with pale yellow. It has an extended range from Victoria up to Cooktown N.Q. _Trapezites iacchus_, one of our commonest species, described by Fabricius in 1775, measures 1¾ inches in length, and is of a uniform, dull brown colour shaded with yellow; the fore wings are blotched with small irregular marks; those on the hind pair are parallel and confluent. The under surface is dull yellow; the fore wings are mottled and the hind ones marked with four to five small purple spots ringed with black. It has a wide range from Tasmania over Australia. _T. symmomus_ is a darker, larger species very similar in the markings, only the yellow spots are more defined. It does not range further north than Brisbane. [Illustration: =Figs. 109= and =110=.--Earlier stages of the Palm Skipper, _Pamphila augiades_ (Fielder). 109. Larva. 110. Pupa.]