classification of Lepidoptera has puzzled entomologists, but which is
usually placed at the end of this family. These are the CRYPTOPHAGINAE,
whose larvae, naked, slender caterpillars, live in shallow chambers
or short tunnels in the branches of the smaller forest trees. They
cover the entrance to their burrow with a screen of loose silken web
covered with gnawed bark and droppings. Resting during the day, they
come out at night and, biting off some of the leaves, drag them down
into the burrow (the ends often sticking out through the web) to feed
on at their leisure. When full grown they pupate within the burrow.
_C. unipunctata_ is a very handsome satiny white moth about 1½ inches
across the wings; the fore pair each have a single black dot in the
centre; the abdomen is black fringed with yellow hairs forming a tuft
at the extremity. In its native state the caterpillars feed upon the
branches of our common honeysuckle (_Banksia serrata_), but have a
very great liking for the branches of cherry trees in the orchards;
where neglected, they often kill large branches by their attacks. _C.
irrorata_ is a larger moth, measuring up to 2 inches across the wings,
the fore pair being very broad and square at the extremities; they are
of a uniform greyish brown, slightly mottled with a darker pattern
round the outer margins; the hind pair are silvery brown fringed
round the edges. The larva feeds on the stems of _Casuarina_. _C.
rubriginosa_ is nearly as large as the last; the fore wings are reddish
brown. There is a salmon tint on the thorax extending on to the base of
the fore wings; the hind wings are brownish yellow. The larvae feed in
the stems and branches of several species of _Acacia_.
Family 17. Grain and Clothes Moths.
MICRO-LEPIDOPTERA.
In concluding the Lepidoptera I place these families, often grouped
together under the comprehensive term _Micro-lepidoptera_, in the
above division. Most of these moths are small, but the group is very
important in that it contains some of the most destructive pests of
grain, cloth, &c., and they are world-wide in their range. Meyrick has
made a special study of these moths, and has classified and described
an immense number in a series of papers in the Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W.
1878–1904.
The larvae of the different groups are usually slender naked grubs with
a few scattered hairs, and are sometimes legless; but others again have
from 14 to 18 pairs of legs. They feed upon all kinds of material,
sometimes forming tubular cells out of their food, while others move
about quite freely. The moths may be obtained by beating or shaking
bushes, or breeding them from the material among which they feed.
The Family OECOPHORIDAE is the most extensive in Australia; in his
first paper on the group in 1883, Meyrick estimated that over 2,000
species would be discovered, and later in 1889 he had actually
described 756 species, most of them new. The Genus _Philobota_ contains
105 described species, many of them handsome brightly marked little
moths. _P. arabella_, slightly over ¾ of an inch across the wings,
is of a general greyish brown tint, with the central portions of the
fore pair pale yellow edged with brown forming wedge-shaped patches.
_P. catascia_, slightly larger, has the fore-wings silvery white,
slightly clouded; the hind ones dull yellow in the centre fringed
with light brown. _P. productella_ a little smaller, is all silvery
white, with yellowish tints in the hind pair; and _P. agnesella_ is
a larger silvery one with a narrow irregular dark stripe along the
centre of each fore wing from the base to the apex. _P. gascialis_,
a very different larger winged form, has the fore pair dark orange
yellow, each with a broad brown blotch through the centre, and tip dark
brown; the hind pair dull brown fringed with fine plumes. _Macrobatha
platychroa_ is under ½ an inch across the wings; the fore pair are
marked with alternate bars of white and black, and the hind pair
greyish brown. _Heliocausta hemitelis_, about twice the size, has
the fore wings yellow, tipped and blotched with purplish brown, the
blotch on each hind margin angular; the hind wings brown. _Zonopetala
decisiana_, under ½ an inch across the wings, has the fore pair white,
each with a large brown blotch across the centre, and others at the
tip, and with a band of the same colour across the thorax; the hind
wings light buff and fringed with hairs. The caterpillar of _Ocystola
hemicalypta_ constructs a protective covering about as thick and long
as a large wax match out of a section of a gum twig, in which it lives
and feeds after hollowing it out like a tube; these curious cocoons are
not uncommon in the bush on the leaves of eucalypts.
The GELECHIADAE is another large family recently revised by Meyrick
(Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1904); he says that these moths are not so
numerous as in Europe, but as they are such small, inconspicuous
insects there are probably a great number still to be discovered. He
describes 274 species, of which 207 are new, and 85 of which belong
to the Genus _Protolechia_. Several species that infest grain belong
to this group: _Gelechia simplicella_, a tiny little brown moth,
has pointed slender wings, the fore pair nearly black, with a very
distinctive irregular white bar across each apical half. Meyrick has
placed it in the Genus _Anacampsis_; it has a wide range over Tasmania
and Australia: I have bred it from the foliage of Soy beans, which the
larvae matted together and seriously damaged. _Sitotroga cerealella_
is a tiny yellowish brown moth with pointed wings. It has a wide
range round the Australian coast, and has been introduced from Europe
or America with corn upon which the larvae feed. It is known as the
“Angoumois Grain Moth” from the province of that name in France, where
in 1760 it swarmed over the country and nearly caused a famine. I have
bred it from wheat at Bingara N.S.W.
[Illustration: =Fig. 143.=--_Gelechia simplicella_
(Walker).
The Soy-bean Moth.]
The ELACHISTIDAE were described and revised by Meyrick (Pro. Linn. Soc.
N.S.W. 1897), who lists 254 species, most of which were new. He says:
“The species of this family are almost all small and therefore often
neglected by collectors. Larva with 10 prolegs seldom almost apodal,
usually mining in leaves, or amongst seeds or in stems, sometimes
case-bearing, rarely amongst spun leaves.”
[Illustration: =Fig. 144.=--_Batrachedra sparsella_
(Walker).
The larva of which constructs a web amongst, and feeds on,
scale insects.]
The larvae of the members of the Genus _Batrachedra_, according to
Meyrick, feed usually upon seeds. _B. arenosella_, a small dull pale
yellow moth with spotted fore wings and grey hind ones, is common over
Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. The larvae web the seeds and
stalks of sedges together, and form a cocoon among the seeds. I have
bred a species of _Batrachedra_, _B. sparsella_, Walk., but can find no
record of this species in Meyrick’s list. The larva of this moth spins
a web on the trunks of trees that are infested with scale insects
which they devour, finally forming an elongate cocoon attached to the
bark; in the orchard they destroy white louse on oranges, and San Jose
scale on peach trees. _Strathmopoda melanochra_, a little brown moth,
has the fore wings dull white with metallic reflections and darker
markings; the wings are very finely fringed on the hind margins.
The Family PLUTELLIDAE contains one very destructive little pest in the
Diamond-backed Cabbage Moth, _Plutella cruciferarum_; the slender green
larvae gnaw holes in the leaves and pupate in net-like cocoons on the
foliage. It has a world-wide range and is very common in Australia.
The Family TINEIDAE, containing the clothes moths, is defined by
Meyrick (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1892) as the rough-headed _Tineina_,
with the palpi strongly developed in front of the head, and the hind
wings usually as broad as the fore wings, sometimes narrower but seldom
broader. Larva with 16 legs, or legs wanting.
The Genus _Xystmatodoma_ contains 29 species, of which _X. guildingi_
is a typical form described by Scott in his “Australian Lepidoptera”;
it is a slender-winged dull brown moth, the larva of which crawls about
in a stout silken sack like that of an immature case moth, and feeds
upon low scrub. _Scardia australasialla_ is a handsome little moth,
which is figured in Donovan’s “Insects of New Holland”; it measures
about 1¼ inches across the wings; the fore pair are dull brown but so
thickly covered with shining white to pale yellow spots that it looks
very brilliant; the hind pair are brown fringed with long plumes.
_Blabophanes ethelella_ is about ¾ of an inch across the wings; the
fore pair are dark brown finely spotted with white and some have a
comparatively large white dot in the centre of each wing, the hind
margin also edged with white; the hind pair light brown. The Genus
_Tinea_ is represented by a number of both native and introduced
species. The common clothes moth, _Tinea pellionella_, is too well
known to need description; it is world-wide in its range, and lays its
eggs upon clothes on which the larvae feed and finally use particles to
construct their cocoons. _T. tapetzella_ feeds among furs and skins.
_Tineola biselliella_ is a third cosmopolitan species of clothes moth.
_Tinea fuscipunctella_ feeds upon dried animal matter, refuse and such
like; it also is world wide in its range. Among our native species,
_T. nectaria_ is under ½ an inch across the wings; the fore pair have
the basal two thirds silvery yellow with the tips black; the hind pair
dull yellow darkest at the tips. Meyrick says that these larvae make
cases out of eucalyptus leaves, but my specimens were bred out of
blister-like excrescences or galls upon the leaves of a shrub in the
Botanic Gardens Sydney. _Thudaca obliquella_, about 1 inch across the
wings, is a beautiful little silvery white moth, with the fore wings
deep yellow thickly marked with parallel and transverse bars of silvery
white; the hind pair broad, silvery, lightly clouded, and fringed
behind with long plumes.
The EPIPYROPIDAE comprise a small group of moths that have been raised
to the rank of a family by Perkins (Bulletin I. part 2, “Leaf Hoppers
and their Natural Enemies,” Hawaii 1905), though it would probably
be more correct to place them as a sub-family of the Tineidae. Sharp
(Cambridge Natural History: Insects part II.) places them in the
_Limacodidae_. They are small black, grey or brown moths, with small
eyes; no ocelli; the palpi wanting or very minute, and the mouth
parts little developed. They have remarkable parasitic habits in the
caterpillar state living upon the backs of different leaf hoppers
(_Homoptera_) and feeding upon the waxy or sugary secretions discharged
by their hosts. Perkins describes 7 new Australian species, which
are placed in three genera, based on the neuration of the wings.
Three species come from Cairns, N. Queensland, and four from the
neighbourhood of Sydney. _Heteropsyche melanochroma_ measures under ½
an inch across the outspread wings and is of a general black or fuscous
colour with purple tints on the fore wings. Koebele records it as
common about Sydney, parasitic upon a number of different Fulgorids and
Jassids.
Rothschild (Novitates Zoologicae 1906) has named another species,
_Epipyrops doddi_, after the well known collector, P. F. Dodd, who had
worked out its life history in North Queensland.
[Illustration: =Fig. 145.=--_Plodia interpunctella_
(Hubner).]
Order VII.--DIPTERA.
Flies.
House flies are well known to everyone; but as a number of other
insects belonging to different orders are often called flies, such
as “saw-flies,” which are Hymenoptera, and “lace-winged flies” and
“May-flies,” which are Neuroptera, it is advisable to define them.
Some of the Diptera might be mistaken by a casual observer for
Hymenoptera which the members of several families often mimic in form
and colouration, but they can be readily separated by the absence of
a second pair of wings, which are represented by two little clubbed
processes, known as balancers, poisers, or halteres. The mouth parts
are very variable in structure in the different groups, but always
adapted for piercing or sucking; the eyes are large, often occupying
the greater part of the head and consisting of an immense number of
fine facets; the small ocelli are three in number; and the antennae,
except among midges, are short, composed of few joints, and often
terminate in a bristle.
The thorax is not so distinctly divided into the three segments
as in some other insects, nor the parts so well defined as in the
hymenoptera; the wings, transparent or parchment-like, are seldom
coloured; the legs, usually not thickened, are furnished with five
tarsi, and well developed claws, with a small pad under each, known
as the pulvillus. The abdomen is composed of a variable number of
segments ranging from four to nine, but in the former case though
not visible the terminal ones are probably absorbed into the anal
tube at the extremity. Most diptera are brown, black, or grey, though
metallic tints predominate in some families; and are clothed with short
scattered hairs or bristles.
The typical fly larva is an elongated legless maggot with the head
portion slender, enclosing a pair of black retractile hooked jaws,
with tracheae opening behind and running through to the broadened anal
segment where they form small rosette-like processes round the external
aperture. The eggs are laid in all kinds of decaying vegetable or
animal matter, with the exception of the few that produce galls, or
otherwise damage plant tissue; when full grown they change into a hard
shell-like chrysalis, the tip of which is pushed off by the perfect fly
when ready to emerge.
Though this country is very rich in Diptera and many cosmopolitan
species have been introduced such as the house flies, they have been
much neglected by Australian collectors and entomologists. The Diptera
are divided into two large sections, which are further subdivided
into four main groups, to which a fifth has been lately added for the
reception of the fleas, which however are often placed by specialists
in a class by themselves (_Siphonaptera_). The older writers
subdivided them into about 70 families but latterly these have been
reduced, and most of our species will come under about 30 families, of
which I can only note our most striking representatives.
In 1830 the French naturalist Robineau Desvoidy published his “Essai
sur les Myodaires,” in which some of our species were described.
Between the years 1834 and 1835 Macquart brought out his “Histoire
naturelle des Insectes Diptères” (forming part of the great French
work Suites à Buffon), followed (1838–42) by his “Diptères exotiques,
nouveaux ou peu connus” comprising two volumes and many plates,
with 5 supplements (1846–55). Walker between 1848 and 1855 compiled
a “Catalogue of the Diptera of the British Museum” consisting of 7
volumes; and others are described in his “Diptera Saundersiana” 1856.
In 1864 Dr. Schiner estimated that the number of described Australian
Diptera was 1056, including those which he described (Diptera des
Novara), collected by Frauenfeld in the neighbourhood of Sydney during
the visit of the Austrian Frigate. In a long series of papers reaching
from 1859 till just before his death in 1892 Bigot described a great
many species (among them some from Australia) chiefly in the Annales de
la Societé Entomologique de France.
The only systematic Australian work is Skuse’s “Monograph of the
Australian Diptera” (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1888–90), which however was
never completed, dealing only with the NEMATOCERA comprising
the Culicidae, Tipulidae, Cecidomyidae and some of the smaller
families. There is no complete catalogue of Australian Diptera, but
I have been greatly assisted in my work on this family through the
identification of my specimens by Mr. Coquillett of Washington.
Family 1. Gall-Gnats.
CECIDOMYIDAE.
This is an extensive family of small delicate midges with long slender
antennae composed of many bead-like segments beautifully feathered with
whorls of hairs. The abdomen is stout at the base, short and tapering
to the tip; the legs are long and slender without spurs; the wings are
clothed with fine hairs that easily rub off, and furnished with very
few longitudinal veins, and in some genera only one cross nervure.
They are known as “Gall-gnats,” or “Gall-flies,” and though the habits
of the larvae are very diverse, some living under bark, others in
animal matter, and a few predaceous or even cannibalistic in their
habits, the majority of them are found in plant tissue and produce
malformations or regular well defined galls, often of very remarkable
structure, upon the foliage or twigs of their food plant.
The egg is deposited in or under the bark, epidermis of the leaf,
or frequently in the flower buds of plants, the irritation caused
by the active larvae producing the aborted tissue. These larvae are
very easily recognised if examined with a lens after they have been
extracted from the gall, as they are furnished with a “breast bone,”
an anchor shaped process that stands out very distinctly in the centre
of the ventral surface and is unknown in the larvae of any other
gall-producing insect.
Through the discovery of Wagner, a Russian entomologist, that the larva
of a Cecidomyia produced young; also through the curious exudations of
the larvae and pupae of others which are sometimes called “flax seed”
from their shape; and the very destructive habits of several species
which damage the wheat, like the Hessian Fly in America, this family
has received a great deal of attention. Over 1,000 species have been
described from all parts of the world, and Australia is particularly
rich in these insects. Skuse (Pro. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 1888 and 1890) has
described over 100 species and figured some of the most peculiar galls.
_Cecidomyia frauenfeldi_ was named by Dr. Schiner after the naturalist
who collected the galls on _Leptospermum_ in the vicinity of Manly,
N.S. Wales. These galls are produced upon a leaf-bud and consist of a
number of rounded leaf-like bracts, not unlike the petals of a rose
bud; folding over each other, brown in colour, soft and loose, and
about the shape and size of a small marble. The enfolded larva will be
found in the base at the centre, and the gnats can be easily bred out
in a glass jar. The Acacia Gall-gnat, _C. acaciae-longifoliae_, infests
the flowers of this wattle, depositing its eggs in such numbers that
every tiny seed-pod is produced into a contorted mass of finger-like
tubes, together forming a rounded base attached by a stalk, and each
tube containing a larva. This is one of our commonest species and the
galls can often be collected in numbers in the neighbourhood of Sydney.
_Diplosis frenelae_ produces very remarkable little light brown
spherical structures upon the tips of the foliage of the desert
cypress, about the size of small peas; these when mature split into
four shell-like sections, quite unlike the usual gall. They are very
abundant in the early summer upon cypresses in Wagga and the western
pine scrubs of N.S. Wales. _Diplosis paralis_ forms curious little
blisters upon the young foliage of _Eucalyptus corymbosa_, dotting
the leaves all over with reddish spots with a keyhole-like mark on
the apex. A third species, _D. eucalypti_, aborts the young twigs of
Eucalypts into gouty swellings in which a number of larvae feed and
pupate.
There are certain red rounded shot-like galls of the Eucalyptus,
generally several in number on the midrib of the leaf, which, on
account of the pupal skins always remaining in the holes in the
sides of the galls through which the flies have escaped, can be
easily distinguished from many very similar ones that are the work
of micro-hymenoptera. These are formed by a large stout gnat named
_Hormomyia omalanthi_ by Skuse, who first obtained specimens from
galls on the under side of the leaves of _Omalanthus populifolius_.
_Lasioptera miscella_ aborts the leaf stalks of _Eucalyptus
haemastoma_, one of our white stemmed gums growing about Botany,
N.S.W., with its irregular swellings.
I have also bred several undetermined species from galls on the twigs
of the Weeping Myall, _Acacia pendula_, and other wattles in the
western scrubs. There is a rich field awaiting the naturalist who takes
up the study of the life-history of our Gall-gnats.
Though the Hessian Fly, _Cecidomyia destructor_, is not known in
Australia it has been introduced into New Zealand, and in the United
States of America is one of the most serious pests that the wheat
farmers have to fight. This gnat deposits her eggs under the sheath
of the growing wheat stalks; the larva sucks up the sap, so that the
ear is impoverished and no grain forms in the head; and when they are
numerous the greater part of the crop is destroyed.
Family 2. Shade Midges.
MYCETOPHILIDAE.
These small flies, popularly known as “Midges,” are placed by Skuse
in four well defined families, which I place under the one heading as
their habits are very similar.
The SCIARIDAE are the typical “Shade midges” infesting forest country;
their larvae live under dead bark or decomposing leaves and are
slender, cylindrical, semi-translucent maggots, white or pale yellow in
colour, with the body composed of 13 segments including the head. The
perfect insects have moderately long, curved, many jointed antennae;
two ocelli; long slender legs; and the wings often clouded. Skuse has
described 42 species in this group, all of which with one exception he
placed in the typical Genus _Sciara_; these have the wings longer than
the abdomen, the surface of them microscopically pubescent, and the
wing-lobes more or less developed.
The MYCETOPHILIDAE are popularly known as “Fungus-midges” from the
fact that the larvae, which are slender white maggots attenuated at
both extremities, and with horny heads, are often found feeding upon
the juices of fungi; some spin silken webs under which they live, and
a few are said to be luminous. They are small flies with beautifully
marked wings in many species, and have slender antennae; 3 ocelli;
and a short proboscis; the rather long legs have the coxae elongated
and are furnished with spurs upon the tibiae; the wings, without a
discoidal cell, have more veins than those of the Gall-gnats. Walker
described 4 species (Insecta Saundersiana 1856); to which Skuse added
31 new species. _Lyomya setiosicaudata_ was described by Skuse from
the neighbourhood of Sydney in the Genus _Acrodicrania_, but it has an
extended range: I have taken it with a sweeping net about Inverell N.S.
Wales. It measures about ⅙ of an inch in length; has a shining head and
thorax; abdomen black, and variegated black and yellow legs.
The SIMULIDAE contains a number of small Diptera abundant in Europe
and America, where they are known as “Sand-flies,” “Black-flies,” or
“Buffalo-gnats”; they swarm in the marshy lands of the Mississippi
where Howard says, “They rival the mosquito in their blood-thirsty
tendencies, and not only do they attack human-beings, but poultry and
domestic animals are frequently killed by them.” We are fortunate in
having very few of these pests; only one species was discovered by
Skuse, who named it _Simulium furiosum_, and says it is a rare fly
only found in the Gosford district N.S. Wales. These flies must not be
confounded with the midges known in Australia as “Sand-flies,” which
are very different insects belonging to the Genus _Ceratopogon_, of the
Family Chironomidae.
The BIBIONIDAE are medium sized flies with thickset bodies somewhat
hairy; smoky wings; robust legs; short antennae; and three ocelli. The
females deposit their eggs in dung or vegetable matter, and the maggots
have rows of transverse bristles on the segments; and traces of eyes
can be found in the head segment. The perfect flies are sluggish in
their movements and are commonly found upon flowers. Twelve species
have been described from Australia, of which _Bibio imitator_ is our
commonest species; it is very abundant in the early summer upon the
flower heads of _Astrotricha floccosa_, which grows in most of the
valleys round Sydney; it has a wide range from Tasmania northwards in
similar forest country. The male is under ½ an inch in length and is of
a uniform black tint, with the thorax dull red; while the larger female
is of a uniform reddish brown, and both sexes have the typical dark
clouded wings.