On my return from the terraces I rode through this grand forest alone by night. The stars shone brightly, the moon lit up the giant trunks of the trees in a soft, silvery sheen, and cast deep shadows that flitted about like spectres in the gloom; the twisting vines hung in fantastic coils overhead, and countless myriads of glowworms[29] sparkled and glittered in a thousand brilliant coruscations on every side, on the trees, among the rocks, and in the ferns, and in a way which reminded me of the gorgeous fireflies I had often admired when in the jungles of Ceylon. It was while admiring the beauties of the Rauporoa forest that I came across a specimen of what I may term one of nature's most paradoxical works; it was the _hotete_--the grub of the large night-butterfly--the _Sphæria Robertsi_, or "vegetating caterpillar." To give an idea of this singular curiosity, one must imagine a grub or caterpillar from two to three inches long, with a dark brown body, in appearance not unlike a piece of dried leather, while the legs, the feet, the eyes, and the mouth are perfect in every detail, as if the insect had been carefully stuffed and preserved. But most curious of all, from the tail end there shoots out the thin stem of a plant from six to eight inches long, perfectly rounded and smooth in form, with a rounded point, and of the same colour as the caterpillar. To explain this, it is clear that the grub, when alive, eats the seed of some unknown plant or tree, and which, germinating in its inside, when the insect buries itself in the ground for the purpose of changing into a chrysalis, gradually kills it, as it grows and feeds, as it were, upon the vitality of its body. The most remarkable feature, however, in the whole metamorphosis is not that the grub eats the seed, nor that it germinates within its body, but that the process should go on whilst the outward form of the grub remains intact, as if it underwent during the time some peculiar mode of preservation. The grub is found in this state underground, with the plant growing above the surface. It should be remarked that the latter has neither branches nor leaves, but partakes more of the character of a creeping vine. Some of the natives are of opinion that it is the seed of the _rata_ which the grub eats in this way, but the question appears to be undecided.