The Weta (Maori name).

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 5

The Weta (Maori name).

The insect is known to science as Sesia tipuliformis, and ia a very peculiar moth. In common with its congenors, although originally famished with plenty of scales or feathers covering its wings, like other moths, it very Boon shakes them off in fluttering about when it leaves the pupa, and leaves the wings bare and clear, like those of a bee or other cleanwinged insects, the only feathers remaining being a margin round theoutsides of the wings and at the extremity of the abdomen. This, together with a rather peculiar form, gives these moths somewhat the appearance of such insects as the bee, the hornet, &c, and it is supposed by most naturalists that in this way the insect derives some protection from enemies who feed upon moths, but avoid the hymenopteraj. The one in question is called tipuliformis because it is supposed to resemble an insect very commonly called the " Daddy long-legs," whose more respectful appellation is Tipula oleracea. They are a very great nuisance, and very difficult to get rid of where they are once introduced. Some people use a piece of ductile copper wire ? which they thrust down the burrows ; others inject a little diluted kerosene oil. Either process will kill all the larvae reached ; but it is a tedious, never-ending task, and a very doubtful means of ever exterminating them. A great many of the moths can be killed in the evening with a small hand net, and lamps will destroy a good many ; but per* haps the best plan is to reduce the number of* the bushes very much in the meantime, so as to have fewer to go over, and watch those that are left closely, and whenever a shoot is seen to be affected, cut it off and split it open till the worm is reached and destroyed. As for injecting the oil, it would be a tedious process, and may be regarded as simply impracticable. Cutting off the currant shoot is bad enough, but it is, on the whole, the easiest and most effective plan, and as new shoots soon grow, and new bushes can easily be grown when the moth has been got under, it does not matter about destroying a great many shoots ; but it must be remembered that none of those remedies can do much permanent good unless the neighbouring garden owners wiil also persevere in the same "course, for the least neglect will very soon bring a host of the enemy back again. Small birds destroy a great many of these currant moths, and this is one of the very few good thiDga that, can be said of the Bparrow — probably because the omnivorous little fellow desires to devour all the currants Himself.

The writer has also received an insect to identify and " give some account of." This is a very well-known insect in many districts. It is a' Bpecies of "ground " (or apterous) cricket peculiar to New Zealand. " Weta." is the Maori name, but it" rejoices in the technical appelatioix of Dejnacrida megapephales. The n)ale is a more formidable creature, haying a very large and ugly black head, and a very large and sharp pair of nippers, with which it both can and will bite severely ; but the idea, which is very common, that the wound is

poisonous is in all probability incorrect. The writer knew a bushman once, a very respectable and reliable man, who informed him that on one occasion, when one of his mates was bitten by a weta, it required the strength of two of them to hold him down to prevent him from injuring himself in the paroxysms of his Bufferings ; but although instances of poisonous bites are not uncommonly believed in, the subject requires thorough investigation before it becomes an established fact that the insect is, properly speaking, poisonous. New Zealand is not supposed to contain any poisonous animal except the katipo spider, of which there are two poisonous varieties — Letrodectus katipo and Letrodectus katipo, variety Attritus, the former being the vermilion-spotted variety and the latter the yellow. This spider is so very generally credited with being so dangerous as to cause death, and there are bo very many apparently wellauthenticated cases of death resulting from its bite, that it is really quite surprising to find how very few of these cases will bear a searching investigation. Some time ago, when prosecuting inquiries into this matter for the entomologists of the United States Government, the writer was surprised to find that only in one single case could he find anything like clear proof that the death of the person bitten resulted from the spider poison, and even than the case was rather a weak one. A Maori woman had been bitten in the abdomen, and after much severe suffering had died, apparently from the bite, but she was attended by a missionary, who had administered large doses of laudanum (no doubt to ease the pain), and as the katipo poison is known to be a very powerful narcotic poison, it might naturally appear to many that the remedy was hardly a judicious one, and there is no saying how much the opiate may have had to do with the result. It is just the same with the weta, everyone speaks of its poisonous bite, and many have tales to relate that seem to confirm the idea, added to all of which it is an extremely ugly brute, and bites and snaps furiously at any stick or straw used to annoy it ; but until something much more definite has been proved against it, it certainly is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and must be held innocent until proved to the contrary. When one talks of •' poisonous insects," of course it must be understood to mean those whose poison is generally fatal, because there are plenty of them which inject fluid to a certain degree poisonous. The mosquito bites often induce rather serious effects. The bite even of the common house fly has been known, under certain circumstances, to become fatal, and few are unacquainted with the pain of the sting of a common hive bee. In America a fatal case occurred not long ago where proof positive was given of an unusually strong and apparently perfectly healthy man dying from a bee's sting within 15 minutes, but up to the present time we have no reliable proof of the existence of any fatal poisoqous insect in New Zealand, or of any other such animal native to the colony, with the exception of the katipo spider, although we have no guarantee how long it may be before Borne really poisonous animals may be introduced in the land of experimental government. There are known to be several varieties of snakes which prey more or less upon the rabbit, and there is no saying how the slight disadvantage of their being fatally poisoneus to the human race may exclude their introduction with the weasels, polecats, stoats, and other undesirable fellow colonists.

Entomologist.