From W. G. Howell   14 April [1868 or 1874]¹

Sir,

I have recently received from a relative in New Zealand a number of what I shall best make myself understood by calling vegetable caterpillars. I have shewn them to various persons with more or less acquaintance with Natural History who, however, have failed to give any satisfactory Explanation of the extraordinary peculiarities they present & combine.

In appearance they resemble a caterpillar—the legs, mouth & corrugated skin are perfectly well defined, but they are covered with what seems like a thin bark which encloses a kind of pithy substance forming the body and from the head of some of them there is a species of vegetable shoot covered also with bark and having no apparent purpose in relation to the Economy of the animal.²

My description of it is wholy without scientific pretension— I do not know whether it is a novelty in this country, but if you have not yet seen any specimens of it, I should feel favored by the permission to wait upon you with those in my possession. They seem to me objects of very extraordinary interest.

I am Sir | Your most obedient Servant | W. G. Howell.