IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19906, 28 September 1926, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

THE SPIDERS’ ALLY, By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S, A correspondent ..t Toatoa, Opotiki, lias sent an interesting little creature for identification. It looks like an insect, but is an ally of the spiders. Insects are not even closely related to spiders. An insect’s body is divided into three areas — head, thorax, and abdomen. A spder’s body has only two ureas. A spider s head is joined to the thorax; an insect’s head is free. A spider has four pairs of legs; an insect has three pairs. A spider always is wingless, and always has a pair of poison claws. The average spider, it is believed, is more intelligent than the average insect. The prejudice against spiders is general, but neople who get to know them intimately express admiration for several traits they possess and amazement at their ingenuity. Those observers go further than Samuel Butler, author of “Erewhon,” went in one of his whimsical phrases. ‘Sniders are very ugly creatures,” he wrote, “but I presume that God loves them.”

The strange creature sent from Opotiki has a blackish body, and eight thread-like legs almost three inches long, each with ,a minute curved black hook at the tip. It has no popular name; officially it is Phyrnus cheliforides. It lives mostly in dark forests amongst mosses and other small growth on tho trunks of live trees, The species, many years ago, puzzled the Rev. W. Colenso, who, in the early days, combined botany, zoology,, and ethnology with missionary effort, doing much good work in each field. He found only a few individuals of ' e species, although he searched for them diligently. On one occasion ho accidentally and unexpectedly saw one in a forest. He tried hard to secure it without smashing it, but failed to do so. It spread its long legs so prodigiously that, in the end, it escaped amongst thick vegetation. It had shell a strange appearance, with its threatening chelae, that he feared it as he would fear a katipo spider. Later he found another individual without part of its abdomen. It was still living, and was ablo to crawl slowly through fine, dense vegetation, exciting his wonder at its vitality.

While visiting Dunedin at the end of August, Mr E. L. Kehoe. Grcymouth, walked through the Woodhaugh Valley. High up on a sunny bush-clad slope a few kowhai trees were well forward in bloom. Ho was surprised to see there several tuis feeding from tho golden blossoms, and occasionally giving a musical gulp. At intervals they left the trees for a short tumble in the air. The place they graced by their presence is within sight and sound of trams and of other traffic along George street, and residences are quite close. During a four-mile walk there was hardly any time during which Mr Kehoe did not hear a tui. At one sunny place he counted at least 30 tills. More, probably, were in the bushes. The tuis sometimes flew straight up in the air and back again, or flew from tree to tree. Mr Kenoe had a good view of the interesting sight from the road. He saw the bellbirds, in fair numbers, feeding on the new flowers of the native fuchsia. They swung along briskly, and, head downwards, drained tne drooping flowers. Two bellbirds he watched from about two yards had their bills and their heads above the bills stained purple. His presence did not perturb them, and now and then they uttered a single bell-like sound, or a short burst of about three melodious notes. "We see many of these birds on the West Coast.” Mr Kehoe writes, “but it is gratifying to see and hear them near a city in such numbers. The forethought of those who conserved the native bush that attracts them cannot be praised too much. At a time when regret is expressed at vanished and vanishing natives, it is cheering to know that beautiful native songsters live in peace, not far from Dunedin, which deserves to be called the Beautiful City.”

Quarry 9, in Como Bluff, Wyoming, United Staten, has an interest to New Zealanders. The rocks there belong to the Jurassic Period, and in them have been found reptilian fossils that stand nearer to New Zealand’s famous tuatara than does any other known fossil. The Rhyn-chocephalia—Snout-heads —once were very widely distributed throughout the world. They are represented to-day by only the tuatara, which, has changed little, if at all, from the £6rm of Its ancient ancestors. The Rhynchocephalians were highly diversified. Some were inatic, others were terrestrial. The most recent group of them to achieve Success were strange, crocodile-like creatures, the Champsosaura, one of the few reptiles of Upper Cretaceous times that survived the passing of the dinosaurs. Long before the Champsosaurs came int 6 the scheme of things there were Rhynchocephalians which were terrestrial, and which closely resembled the tuatara. Their remains have been found in Quarry 9, and in no other place. The fossil jawbone vf one species, Opisthias rarus, was found in the quarry about 17 years ago. The jawbone of another sp. ies was found this year. This has been given a Greek name that means ancient wild beast and companion, In reference to its association in the quarry with many jaws of mammals.

An experiment in planting the toheroa shellfish on the beach at .Papamoa, Tauranga County, is interesting commercially and zoologically. Dr C. E. R. Bucknill, author of "Seashells of New Zealand," reports that the toheroa has lived at Mount Maunganui, near Tauranga borough, during the past six years at least, but no live toheroas have been found naturally embedded in the sand on any beaches in that district, except in isolated cases. Five years ago several single valves of the shellfish' were picked up near the plantation at Mount Mrunganui. Later, about 12 live individuals were washed up near the same place after a rough sea. They ranged in size from juveniles long to adults 4in long. Single valves now are present there in hundreds, showing tl--t the toheroa has established itself somewhere close at hand. In 1923 Mr J. A. Vickers planted between 200 and 300 live toheroas opposite the south-eastern ■extremity of Ral it Island. At dead lowwater he waded out as far as possible and threw the, shellfish into deep water. They had been supplied from Whakatane.' Although the toheroa is reported from different places in New Zealand, including Mount Maungauni, Whakatane, Gisborne, and Timaru, the west coast of the Auckland provinc6 is the or’y place where it is in sufficient numbers to repay the trouble of gathering it. The toheroa industry, a unique one, has been established there for some years. The theory that the toheroa obtains parts of its food sup61y from fresh-water algas is described by >r Bucknill as fantastic. He state* that the toheroa is essentially a marine creature, which must find its food in the clement in which it lives.

Mr G. H. Cunningham, Government Mychologist, has done what probably has been done by no other author. In his preface to "Fungous Diseases of Fruittrees in New Zealand,” he states: “The compositors’ instructions have been to ‘follow copy,’ so that where errors in style, etc, occur they in no way reflect on the craftsmanship of these gentlemen. It is customary for an anther to label all typographic and other errors as printers’ errors, but the staff of Messrs Brett and Co., nii. .ishers of this book, have not left the author even .his subterfuge to fall back upon.” This generous frankness and courage give confidence in the accuracy of Mr Cunningham’s book. It is the result of five years’ continuous study, in the laboratory and in he field, of fun gous diseases that attack commercial orchards in this Dominion. It contains all present Knowledge of New Zealand’s orchard diseases, from brown- - 't, a serious fungous disease on stone f, > : ts, to fireblignt, which appeared mysteriously in New Zealand and has operated disastrously in some districts. The most valuable feature, of Mr Cunningham’s book is the way in which he combines the lifehistorieS of organisms with instructions for their control. It provides a branch of education in which most fruitgrowers are ignorant because some channels of knowledge have not been oi en to them.

A tiny insect, one-third of an inch long, with a bright black body, and a pr minent snout,' sent by Mr Mervyn Wells, Cambridge, is a New Zealand member of the weevil group of the beetles. Its titles are out of all proportion to its size. It belongs to the C-imily of the Scoloptcridic. nd its name is Nyxetes bidens. Although it is widely distributed, nothing seems to be known of its habits.