RESEARCH INTO COCKROACHES

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22823, 23 September 1939, Page 9

RESEARCH INTO COCKROACHES

MR DAVID GRAHAM’S

APPOINTMENT

WIDE EXPERIENCE AS

BIOLOGIST

A Government biological research appointment has been accepted by Mr David H. Graham, F.R.M.S., F.Z.S., of Christchurch. Mr Graham's work will be an investigation into the cockroach pest in the North Island, which has been causing great concern at tourist resorts. He will leave Christchurch to-day. Purely biological work would be necessary first, Mr Graham said yesterday. to discover the reasons for the large numbers of cockroaches present in certain places. Iri one resort, he said, visitors taking their clothes from wardrobes had found them full of cockroaches, even in sleeves. When the causes had been established he would have to devise means of con-; trol. "They will eat anything human beings wear, or eat, or use, even sandpaper and blacking, and also their own kind,” ho said, indicating the hardiness of cockroaches.

Mr Graham’s first large research undertaking was about 10 years ago, when he had remarkable success, both practical and scientific, in the control of mosquitoes in. the Auckland district.. His ‘‘Mosquitoes of the Auckland District’’ has been published, ip the Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a further paper, “Control of Mosquito Life in the Auckland District” will appear shortly. During two years at the Marine Research Station at Portobello, Mr Graham conducted wide researches into New Zealand marine life. Some of the fruit of this work has been given to readers of “The Press’’ in articles contributed by Mr Graham. Other work has been published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in the form of papers on the fishes of Otago and ’adjacent seas. He is preparing several other papers covering work on crustaceans, parasites of fish, and other more specialised subjects. He has also spent 12 months on a pollen survey at the Medical School at Otago University, and is preparing a paper on a pollen survey of Dunedin. Apart from his contributions to “The Press," Mr Graham is well known as a journalist on scientific subjects. For many years he was a regular contributor to the “Otago Daily Times,” and has also contributed to the “Illustrated London News” and the New Zealand Forest and Bird Protection Society’s magazine.