IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19513, 23 June 1925, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

WHAT TO OBSERVE. By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.SI Many people are deterred from studying natural history by their lack of knowledge as to what to observe. Without some guide they often cannot direct their observations, and cannot determine whether those observations are important or not. Contributors to this column, people who read it without contributing, students, and those to whom natural history is a hobby, will find a great deal of interest in a series of instructions to collectors, published by the Natural History Branch of the British Museum. In addition to giving instructions they show how to identify creatures, and they sketch many characters and habits. Hie 12 pamphlets cover a surprising range, from the largest living animals to those that tho microscope reveals in a drop of water.

A country almost devoid of mammals of its own does not seem to be able to help the great museum in respect to the highest class in tho animal kingdom, but in one of the pamphlets. Sir Sidney F. Planner, Keeper of tho Department of Zoology, asks for skins and skeletons or skulls of wellestablished breeds of domesticated m-.mmals from all parts of the world. Skins of rats and mice, stoats and weasels, are required, but not rats and mice caught in houses and towns. Of lizards, the museum authorities state that, comparatively little is known of their habits, and it is suggested that when a traveller has an opportunity to observe those reptiles for some time he should note everything that appears remarkable.

Insects are more attractive to collectors generally than are members of any other group. Many may be caught on the wing with a butterfly net. Others should be looked for on flowers, under tho bark of trees, in rotten wood, in decaying animal and vegetable matter, under stones, under fallen leaves, at the roots of grass and trees, in ants’ nests, and in ponds and streams. Ground-beetles may bo caught by placing a piece of meat or bone in a pickle-bottle and burying' it with its mouth ou a level with the ground. Moths, some beetles, and other nocturnal insects aro caught by painting patches of sugar on tree trunks and looking for them with a lantern after dark. Apples cut into quarters, smeared with sugar, and hung up, attract moths. Moths may be caught also by hanging up a sheet with a lantern behind it. Attracted by tho light, they settle on the sheet, and may be picked off with glass-bottom boxes, or with a killing bottle. Some beetles and other insects may bo caught by hanging up skins of animals or the carca-ses of small mammals or birds. Some butterflies, strangely, are attracted in that way, as well as by strong cheese. Fleas, lice, and other parasitic creatures should be collected from tno bodies of freshly-knled animals and birds, and from birds’ nests, rabbit burrows, and places of that nature. Tho British Museum, doubtless, will be pleased to have some of New Zealand’s own fleas, Pulex Maorium, named by the late Hon. Lionel Rothschild 20 years ago. Deserted Maori whnres, probably, are the best places to find them. They are less plentiful oven in New Zealand than tho notorious parasites, Pulex irritans, which first came to this country as lords-in-waiting on European colonisers.

Notes on tho habits of insects, the number of broods, whether common or not, and if taken singly or in pairs, arc interesting. Nests, cocoons, and galls aro of little value unless accompanied bv the insects that make or caii.se them. In collecting moths and butterflies it is important to record whether they are caught during a wot season or a dry one. Service can be given by rearing insects from their grubs to their perfect stages. Most of tho Diptcra—insects that have only one pair of wings—aro active when tho sun shines. Rome flowers, usually those with white or yellow colours, are particularly attractive to Diptcra. Tho grubs of mosquitoes are strictly aquatic, and may bo found in ponds, pools, marshes, shallow expansions at tho sides of streams, and rot-holes in trees. Grubs of daddy-long-legs live usually in rotten wood, water, or the soil. Tho sexes may ho distinguished in most of tho Diptcra by the fact that tho eyes meet, or almost meet, on tho forehead of the male, hut are widely separated in the female. As very little is known of the habits of Diptcra in general, notes on the, habits, distribution, seasonal occurrence, and relative frequency of particular species of Diptcra will be particularly acceptable to the authorities. Oases of mimicry should be looked for. Diptcra mostly mimic members of the Hvrncnoptern, the wasps, boos, aids, and their allies.

Specimens are needed of sandflies, which distend their stomachs with blood while a victim may be admiring, through a lons, their iridescent wings and their Impudence. The weal that follows the hito itches as much as the bite of a mosquito. The museum entomologists, by (he way. stale (hat with sandflies, as with mosquitoes, blood-sucking and stinging are only feminine accomplishments. In both groups tiie males cannot suck blood. Male sandflics scorn to spend most of their time dancing in swarms in tho sun, at a fairly good height. In their early stages sandflies pass their lives in running water. The amazing metmorphoses complete, the perfect insect escapes through a rout in the back of tho chrysalis, ascends to (lie surface in a bubble of air, and makes its way to some support on which it rests until its tissues aro sufficiently hardened to enable it to lly.

Now Zealand is mentioned with New Guinea and Madagascar as a place whose mosquitoes are least; known. This should stimulate collectors in districts that mosquitoes favour, as for part of the summer they are in evidence more than any other New Zealand insects. Detailed observations on the habits, distribution, anil seasonal occurrence of mosquitoes are useful, if care is taken to note the species to which they apply. The mosquito grub is described ns usually a small, greenish, greenish-brown or brown creature, occasionally red and blue, with a round head, a rounded, swollen thorax, and an elongated jointed abdomen, from near the end of which a breathing-tube arises. In both the grub and the chrysalis stage a mosquito is very active, moving In the water by a jerky or wriggling motion of the body; in both those stages it must come to the surface to breathe at frequent intervals. In the perfect stage tho male dies quickly in confinement; the female is longer-lived. The breeding habits of New Zealand mosquitoes are little known; and valuable work can be done in this dominion with these vexatious summer insects. As a matter of fact, there is only slight knowledge of the habits of blood sucking Diptera. Notes on almost every phase of their lives and habits and breeding-places will be welcomed.

The museum wishes for specimens of a strange creature reported from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and only a few other countries. This, the Peripetias, has a body like a worm or a caterpillar, swaying antenne and many pairs of stumpy legs. It seems to he an oldfashioned survivor of an archaic form, as the tuatara survives in the reptilian class. It lives under stones, in rotting wood, in moist places, feeds on insects, which it snares by squirting sticky slime at them, moves quickly, and is nocturnal and shy. An unsentimental zoologist, who specially studied the Peripatus, was lost in admiration of it; “The exquisite sensitiveness and continually changing form of the antenna", the well-rounded, plump body, the eyes set like small diamonds on the side of the head, the delicate feet, and, above all, the rich colouring and velvety texture of the skin, all combine to give these animals an aspect of quite exceptional beauty.”

A warning is necessary to New Zealand collectors who intend to semi specimens out of New Zealand. The Maori Antiquities Act forbids anybody to export any “Maori relies” without the permission of flie Minister of Internal Affairs. Custom does not tiring fleas, sandflies, and other insects within the definition of “Maori relics,” but tins Act of Parliament does. Legally, they include articles manufactured with ancient Mauri tools, and according to Maori methods, and “all other articles or things of historical or scientific value or interest and relating to New Zealand,” tint not botanical or mineral collections or specimens.