INSECTS BUSY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 23

INSECTS BUSY.

WINTER AND SUMMER, J 'V ' '' 'LONDON. ': To most people the insect-worid in winter is for all practical purposes dead. An interesting exhibit staged in .the London Zoo's Insect House, ' lioWever, will ihake all visitors realise that, a stealthy insect life, persists the year round, none, the less active because it is unseen. -~ •, v.V.Vi

Near the. entrance,, itor-tho house is exhibited a series' of . wood-tunnelling larvae, many of large' size. The larvae of the stag beetle, for example, are as big as a man's thumb, and bore deep ■within mature, oak trees over a period of several years. Still larger are the caterpillars of the foul-smelling goiit moth, that* .make tortuous tube systems., in the" wood of various species of trees. On the opposite side of the ,corridor is a series. of destructive insects, 'wliich 'invade the larder and "the warehouse. Being mostly of;small size they are viewed through portholes which magnify them several . time3'.' their natural size.

In this rogues' gallery may be-.met the furniture beetle, that—can reduce oaken beams to so , mucli sponge, the grain weaver that destroys and pollutes .wheat, the silver fish insoet- ~\tflneli invades the flour bin, .and —perhaps the least popular of all —the clothes moth in it 6 various stages of development. '