Court House Sale2
Dec 5 1881.
Baron Sir Ferd v. Mueller KCMG
Melbourne
My dear Baron
I send you herewith a small case containing the pupae3 of the Lepidopter which eats the E. tereticornis.
I also enclose some sketches which a lady here has kindly made of the caterpillars. The larger sketches are twice the natural size — the smaller sketches are life size — but the caterpillars varied somewhat.4 I am not sure whether there is not one of a different kind — but whether it is among these I send you or among those I have I cannot say as my girls did not notice when it went into retirement.
I shall be pleased to learn the results when they come out in the Imago form
yours faithfully
A W Howitt
Eucalyptus tereticornis
MS annotations by M: 'individua disturb. respirat & assimilatory functions | affect destructively | hurt | Euc destroyer | Euc.-vorous | North Gippsland | destructive action'.
Vic.
larvae deleted by Howitt and replaced with pupae.
M sent the drawings to William Macleay, who exhibited them at the meeting of the Linnean Society of NSW held on 25 December 1881 (letter not found, see 'Notes and exhibits', Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 1882, vol. 6, p. 845). Macleay reported that 'in the absence of a specimen or even of any description, of the perfect insect, it is absolutely impossible to determine the species of Moth to which the larva belongs; but it apparently is of the genus Orgyia, Family Arctiidae and Division Pseudo-Bombyces. … I have never before heard of the numbers of any of this group of moths being so great in any locality as to injure trees.'
MS found with a specimen of Eucalyptus tereticornis (MEL 707281).
Please cite as “FVM-81-12-05a,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on