spiders could not eat the larval glowworms. No beetles were found at Waitomo, and the backing of flood waters, cannabilism, and starvation are presumably the main factors in keeping down the numbers of glowworms in such situations in N.Z. At Arapuni, judging from remains on webs, no spiders were found attacking the glowworms on banks outside. It is probable from what we know of the voracity of carabid beetles, that Lea could be correct in stating that they could pull glowworms from their snare runways and eat them. The “spider-like creature” of Lea may be a harvestman (Phalangida), small specimens of which were found in the Waitomo Caves, but were not regarded as predaceous by the present writer; further observations may show that Lea was correct so far as concerns true spiders. The Tasmanian glowworms were collected a quarter of a mile within the Caves. Ferguson states that his species differs from B. luminosa chiefly by the relative lengths of the fore metatarsi and tibiae.

Keith C. McKeown (1935) has something to say about the early history of our knowledge of the N.S.W. glowworm. He states that it was seen certainly as far back as 1804 by Caley (the elder) when he visited the Grose Valley (Blue Mountain area). It was eighty years later that Meyrick (see Hudson, 1950) became interested in the N.Z. form at Auckland. The position with regard to the glowworm of N.S.W. is that the adult is unknown, so far as the present writer can ascertain. It seems very likely that had Tonnoir or Skuse bred out adults, this somewhat difficult feat would have been described in the literature. The breeding out of adults of the N.S.W. larva will be awaited with interest.

It will be noted that the N.Z. female in Pl. 41, fig. 12, has eight abdominal segments, whereas the Tasmanian male in fig. 11 has nine. Mr. D. L. Lee (personal communication) has the following remarks to make on this: “The abdomen of the Ida Bay male has 8 visible segments, plus the genitalia. The genitalia are your 9th, but comprise the modified 9th and 10th segments. The anal cerci (usually called lamellae in papers on Mycetophilidae) are accessory to the ovipositor, and hence female structures are not to be found in the male. In this they differ from the characteristic cerci of more primitive orders such as Orthoptera, where cerci are found in both sexes as appendages of the 10th segment. In the Mycetophilidae the number of abdominal segments, exclusive of the genitalia may be either 7 or 8.”

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Measurements in micrometer divisions; 21 divisions = 1 mm.