_KAIPARA INSECTS._
This part of New Zealand, as well as suffering in common with the rest
of the colony from the ravages of the political caterpillar, is a good
deal troubled with other insects, and an entomologist would find in
the Kaipara rare opportunities of prosecuting his studies. Some of the
specimens are so strange that they cannot fail to strike with their
peculiarities the most unobserving, and I will venture to describe two
or three of them.
[Illustration: The Kauri Bug (life size).]
[Illustration: Aweto or Bulrush Caterpillar (two-thirds life size).]
The Kauri bug (called by the Maoris the Kekereru), with its power
of emitting a terrible and unbearable smell when alarmed, has been
so often and so fully dealt with by writers, that I shall content
myself with simply making a sketch of the insect, leaving its smell
to the imagination of my readers, and will proceed to describe the
most curious of the New Zealand native insects I have seen, called
the bulrush caterpillar (_Sphœria Robertsia_)--native name, Aweto.
This caterpillar becomes changed into a white vegetable substance
while still retaining its caterpillar shape. It is from three to three
and a half inches in length, and when about to assume the chrysalis
form buries itself in the ground, and it is supposed that in doing
so, some of the minute seeds of a fungus become inserted between the
scales of its neck; these the insect, being in a sickly condition,
is unable to rid itself of, and they vegetate and spread through the
whole of the body, completely filling and changing it entirely into a
vegetable substance, though retaining exactly the caterpillar form,
even to the legs, head, mandibles, and claws. From the nape of the
neck shoots one single stem, which grows to a height of eight or ten
inches, its apex resembling very closely the club-headed bulrush in
miniature. This insect plant is generally found growing at the root
of the Rata tree. It has no leaves, and if the stem by chance becomes
broken off, another arises in its place, though two stems are never
found growing simultaneously from one caterpillar. When fresh, the
vegetable substance of which it is composed is soft, and has a strong
nutty flavour, and the natives are fond of eating it; they also use it
burnt and ground to powder as colouring matter for tattooing purposes.
In every instance the caterpillar is found perfect in shape and size,
without any sign of contraction or decomposition, and it is therefore
presumed that the vegetating process takes place during the insect's
life. A section of the insect vegetable shows distinctly the intestine
passage.
[Illustration: The Mantis (life size).]
Another curious insect found here is the "Mantis," commonly called,
on account of its shape, "the ridge-pole rafter." This insect has the
power of changing its colour like the chameleon. It favours tea-tree
more than any other plant, and if resting on a withered portion,
assumes a corresponding brown colour, though when found on the young
leaves it is a bright green. Its shape is most peculiar, and very
suggestive of the name given it.
[Illustration: The Weta, Male (two-thirds life size).]
[Illustration: The Weta, Female (two-thirds life size).]
Another insect very commonly found in soft wood tree is called by the
natives the "Weta," but by vulgar little boys "The Jimmy Nipper." It is
a most repulsive and formidable-looking insect, with a body sometimes
two and a half inches long, and is capable of biting hard enough to
make blood flow freely. The male and female differ considerably in
shape, the male being provided with an immense pair of jaws. They have
no wings, and their bodies are covered with a kind of horny shell.
I was engaged felling some dead trees in my bush when I first made the
acquaintance of these uncanny looking insects, and I then discovered
two specimens in a hollow tree. A settler, an old soldier, hailing from
the Emerald Isle, was assisting me, and I asked him what they were
called.
"Jimmy Nippers to be shure, sur!" he responded; "and by the same token,
one's a male, and t'other's a faimale."
I inquired if he knew which was which, and he replied--
"Bedad, sur, shure that's aisy to see; look at the power of jaw in that
one--that's the faimale, sur."
I found out afterwards, however, that he was wrong, and his mode of
reasoning defective, and, I fear, hardly complimentary to the fair sex.
One of the insects most dreaded by our orchardists is an insect called
the "Leech," about a third of an inch long, and very like a small slug.
It sometimes attacks plum and pear trees in thousands, and completely
denudes them of leaves. Shaking wood ashes over the trees is a very
effective method of getting rid of these pests.
During some summers a kind of cricket also appears in immense numbers
and eats the grass, and the bark off the fruit trees. The best remedy
for these is to keep poultry, which relish them immensely, though the
crickets in no sense return the compliment, as they give the flesh of
the fowls a disagreeable bitter taste, and render them for the time
unfit for the table. The eggs are not affected, however, and corn is
saved, which is one point gained. Where crickets are undisturbed, they
destroy all the grass in their neighbourhood, and then turn cannibals
and eat one another.
We have not, I am happy to say, the dreaded Codlin moth up here,
although it exists, I believe, in some parts of New Zealand.
Another destructive insect is a little brown beetle, shaped exactly as
the lady bird. This insect confines its attention to the stalk end of
the apple, round which it nibbles, until the apple withers and drops
off. Last year the orchards in the neighbourhood were free from this
pest, and I hope they have either moved to pastures new, or have been
exterminated by some of our insect-eating birds.
The spider tribe is very fully represented, some specimens being of
enormous size. One kind is said to be so dangerous that a bite from it
endangers life. I have never, however, heard of any one in the Kaipara
having been bitten.
One other insect, called the Mason bee, I must mention. This fly
builds a nest of a kind of white mortar, stocks it with small spiders,
and lives in solitary state. It lays its eggs in the nest, and the
stored spiders, which are not dead, but appear to have been rendered
insensible, are for the consumption of its offspring when they hatch
out. The Mason bee has a very venomous sting, and is altogether an
undesirable visitor, as it builds its habitation in all sorts of
untoward places, sometimes even in the locks of doors.
We have numerous other kinds of insects, including a small sort of
mosquito, a vicious little biting fly called the sandfly, and a locust,
which, though differing altogether in shape from the ordinary locust of
the East of Europe, makes exactly the same noise when settled on a tree.
My readers will probably think, from the foregoing alarming list, that
we are an insect-ridden district altogether, but nature has provided
us with plenty of help to keep down our pests. We have a beautiful
little bird called the Blight bird, as small as some humming birds,
which lives principally on flies and insects, though rather partial
at times to grapes and figs; we have a bright brown vulture hocked
bird--about the size of a lark, barred with brown and white on the
breast, and with a beautiful metallic lustre on its feathers--which
comes in flocks, and destroys great quantities of the Leech; and we
have the imported Chinese Pheasant, which helps us greatly in the
matter of slugs and crickets, though sadly given to rooting up crops
of maize and potatoes, in consequence of which unfortunate habit it is
looked upon as a deadly enemy by most of the farmers.
I asked my Hibernian naturalist friend one day how his potatoes were
getting on. "Bedad, sur," he replied, "Oi niver had a crop come up so
quickly; sure Oi'd only planted thim one day, and ivery mother's son of
thim was up the next!"
His field, he afterwards explained, had received a visit from the
pheasants in force.
In spite, however, of all the wrong-doing laid at the pheasant's door,
I cannot help thinking it does a great deal more good than harm by
keeping down slugs, crickets, and other destructive insects. I took
126 slugs out of the crop of one pheasant, and I have shot many others
quite as well supplied. They also give us many a day's pleasure, and
help to keep the larder stocked. With a couple of good dogs and a
"white man" (as a good fellow is called out here) for a companion, what
more enjoyable than a day after the long tails. You have to do a good
deal of tramping for your sport certainly, and you don't generally make
a big bag, but you never come home empty handed, and feel when your day
is over that you have thoroughly earned the three or four--or perhaps
five or six--brace of birds that are hanging up in your safe.
Heavier bags than these are often made, though it has not fallen to my
lot to make them. Last season a young fellow here grassed fourteen and
a half brace between sunrise and midday, and bigger bags than that are
even sometimes recorded, but they involve to my thinking too great an
expenditure of labour in the way of walking for pleasure.
The full grown cock pheasant in New Zealand weighs from three to three
and a half pounds, and the hen from two to two and three-quarter
pounds.
There is one kind of shooting (native pigeon shooting) that may be
indulged in, without any walking beyond that necessary to reach the
shooting ground. All you have to do is to seat yourself in the bush
under a clump of Taraire trees when the berries they bear are ripe, and
wait for the pigeons to come and feed on them. As soon as the birds are
settled on the trees, and are busy with the berries, you can blaze away
as hard as you like, for they won't fly away or move until you bring
them down. It is unadulterated pot-shooting, and there is not a single
iota of sport to be got out of it with powder and shot, though with a
rook rifle there might be some little fun. The Maoris, who are, as a
rule, bad shots, are very fond of pigeon shooting--they being about the
only birds they can hit--and I have seen them returning after a day's
shooting with two or three horse loads of pigeons. The New Zealand
bird, although looking larger than the English wood quest, rarely
exceeds a pound and a half in weight.