{ 112}When feeding, this caterpillar rests on a blade of the tussock, where it is very inconspicuous. It appears to prefer the dead or drier portions of the grass, and feeds and grows very slowly. It is strictly diurnal in its habits, relapsing into a death-like repose at night.
The pupa is suspended by the tail to an upright blade of the tussock. In the specimen I reared, I was fortunate enough to witness the actual transformation, and during the process, observed it seizing hold of the larval skin with its posterior segments, its manoeuvres whilst thus engaged exactly resembling those of the pupa of _Anosia erippus_, described above by Professor Riley.
The length of the pupa is about ½ inch. Its colour is bright green, with a reddish line along the edge of each wing-case, and several white lines on the sides and back.
The perfect insect appears from December till the end of March. It is usually very abundant where found, the males being more numerous than the females in the proportion of about five to one. It flies amongst the tussock grass in a weak and aimless manner. When rapidly pursued it has a habit of plunging into a tussock and closing its wings, where it remains quite invisible until the danger is past.
The silver stripes on the under side of the hind-wings are very protective to the insect when at rest on its food-plant, the striped coloration of the larva and pupa no doubt serving similar protective purposes.
Characters as in _Argyrophenga_, except that vein 11 of the fore-wings rises from upper margin of cell, shortly before transverse vein.
(_Dodonidia helmsi_, Fereday, Trans. N. Z. Inst. xv. 193.)
(Plate XI., fig. 14, fig. 15 under side; Plate III., fig. 5 larva, fig. 28 pupa.)
A single specimen of this interesting butterfly was discovered by Mr. R. Helms, in 1881, on the Paparoa Range, near Greymouth, at an elevation of about 1,500 feet above the sea-level. Until within the last three years only three other specimens had been captured, viz., one near Wainui-o-mata, in Mr. A. P. Buller's collection; one on the Dun Mountain, Nelson, at an elevation of about 2,500 feet, which is in my collection; and one on the Tableland of Mount Arthur, at about 3,300 feet, which was kindly given to me by Mr. C. W. Palmer. In the summer of 1894-95 several specimens were captured by Mr. P. Marshall near Wanganui,[53] and during the same season Messrs. Smithers and Hawthorne discovered the insect in considerable abundance at a locality near Silverstream, in the Wellington district. During the two following summers additional specimens were obtained near Silverstream, and I was fortunate enough to discover there a number of specimens of the larva, which furnished the material for the illustration and description of the preparatory stages of the insect given in this work.