IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8794, 9 February 1909, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

(By James Drumraond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) (Evening Post.) THE KATIPO AND HIS HABITS. Sinco the publication of some notes on the katipo a few months ago, correspondents in several parts of the Dominion have forwarded information in regard to this handsome but venomous little spider's habits. Although the. Maoris say that their children have frequently succumbed to bites, I can finu only one authentic case of death. This was a Maori girl, who was bitten at Waihi, near Maketu, in the Bay of Plenty. She was treated by Mr Chapman, a missionary, who resided in the district, and he attended to her for nearly a fortnight, rubbing the bitten part with ammonia, and applying other remedies. She seemed to recover, but one day she suddenly became faint and pallid. After that she lost all desire for food, taking only bread and tea aiid sometimes a little wine. She lingered in that condition for six weeks, and then died. It is stated that some years ago all the members of a Maori fishing party at the mouth of the Wanganui river were bitten, and that two of them died. The Maoris also say that when a war party camped in the same place for a night ten men were bitten, some suffering severely. Neither of these statements, however, has been authenticated. In one case, reported from the west coast of the Wellington province, a Maori woman stated that a few minutes after she was bitten she had pains all over her. That was followed by shiverings, which continued for about four minutes, and returned at irregular intervals. Her husband applied a hot roasted potato on the seat of pain, which relieved it. She recovered in three days. Eight years ago, a young man went into Dr. Fyffe's surgery in Wellington, and complained that he had been bitten by a katipo. He had been collecting dried wood on the beach at Petone. While he was showing his hand to the doctor lie fainted. Ho soon recovered, however,, and was sent away cured. Dr. Fyffe says that the local effect of the bite was not unlike that of the bite of the scorpion, although by no means severe. The poison was powerful locally, but it also had a marked general effect, and the doctor believes that, besides the irritant, there is a second ingredient, which acts up the body as a whole. He gave the- man remedies, but he says that surgical remedies are of greater value and ...that if the man, when bitten, had used a knife freely and caused copious 'bleeding, and had then sucked the wound he would probably have escaped with very little further trouble. The remedy of the ancient Maoris was to rub and scarify the part bitten and apply hot scalding leaves or red ochre, and to bathe the patient in hot water. The virulence of the poison was proved by Dr. Ralph, of Auckland, in a cruel experiment he watched. He placed a lively and energetic mouse in a glass bottle with a fine specimen of a katipo. By shaking the bottle ho induced the spider to bite the mouse in two places, on its tail and its paw. The mouse quickly resented the injury by biting the spider and killing it. The house was kept in the bottle, supplied with air, and 18 hours after the contest with the spider it was found dead. Over 50 years ago, Sir Walter Buller visited the same district in which I saw katipos, near Waikanae, in the Wellington province, and collected a large number, which he kept alive. He found them to be very tenacious of life. He placed a fullygrown one in a small box on May 11, forgot about it until October 8, then opened it, and, to his surprise, found the spider alive and active, and, apparently, none the worse for its five months' fast. In other cases, katipos have perished for want of food at the end of a week. The Maoris state that the katipo retires to an underground cell in the winter months, and passes them in a torpid condition, when it may be handled ' with impunity. All the katipos I saw on the Waikanae breach were under logs or pieces of board, but Sir Walter Buller says that their favourite resort is under tufts of the pingo grass, which grows abundantly on the sand dunes near the coast. When the long overlapping leaves of the plant were moved to one side of him the web was seen attached to the roots. The cocoon or nest is described as being perfectly spherical in shape, yellowish-white in colour, and composed of a silky white web, of very fine texture. The eggs are round, about the same size as mustard seed, and a pale, transparent red colour. The katipo is only one of several hundred species of spiders found in New Zealand. It is the most famous or notorious of them all, but there . are very few which have not some habits and characteristics that are worth studying. Probably the most intelligent and ingenious New Zealand member of the class Arachnida is the trap-door spider. Three species of it have been identified. The first trap-door spiders were found near Oamaru by Mr R. Gillies, in 1874. Hβ was riding through a grassy paddock one day, when he saw a large spider on a spare piece - of ground. Attracted by its size, he looked steadily at it for some time, then it suddenly disappeared, as if by magic. He dismoimted from his horse, and took out his knife to dislodge the spider from the dirt-heap in which he supposed it had hidden. He had no sooner applied the point of the blade, than, to his surprise and delight, up sprang a beautiful trap-door. It revealed a large hole, going right down into the earth, lined with .beautiful white silk, which shone in the sun. The silk also lined the inside of the little door, and formed a clever and remarkably good | hinge. ... I

Mr Gillies examined the striking novelty for some time, lifting up the wonderful door and admiring the

exactness with which it fitted, the perfect mobility of the spring with which it immediately shut down on slipping from the knife, and the marvellous adaptation of the outside of the lid to the surrounding conditions. It had been peppered on the outside with loose . soil ,similar to that around, so as to defy detection by anyone unacquainted with the way to find spiders' nests. As a matter of fact, it was so admirably hidden that he lost it. He carefully marked several objects close to it, in order that he might find it again, and went off for a spade. When he returned with the spade no searching would disclose the nest, which he never saw again.