FOR NATURE STUDENTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2884, 30 June 1909, Page 86

FOR NATURE STUDENTS.

The fly is not a very important-looking litfclo customer, is it?" Nor is the mosquito, though the business end at times provokes bad-English. Both, however, like other insects, are largely responsible for the .spread of disease. How many of my readers have read the Hon. Winston Churchill's "My African Journey "? Read there how in five or 6ix yor.rs the teetee fly is responsible for spreading the sleeping sickness, and how in one district in that time it carried off

200,000 out of 300,000! Read there, too, of ] the ravages of the tiok. But I commenced a note on flies, a not© suggested by a paper on Flies read at the I last meeting of the Ota.go Institute by Mr Miller, one of Professor Parker's students. Some one said, I for-gfefc who, that there are two kdnda of naturalists—those who work in the fields, and those who work in the laboratory. Mr Miller combines both, methods—in the open and in the s^udy. A trifling subject h& took up, didn't he? — many thought so, at any rate, and reserved tfheir praise for his finely executed drawings. Bu* what millions of pounds ihe study of a few fliss may be worth! A NOTE SUGGESTED BY DR FUI,- ' TON'S LECTURE ON THE BRONZE CUCKOO. How swift can a bird fly? The flight varies with various birds, of ootrrse; but how swift does the swift fly, for instance? What do you think of over 200 miles an hour? Ac the doctor said: "It can fly across the Atlantic on a thimblefui of gnaifcs; it can breakfast in Canada, and take tea in Brazil." But I want answers to & few questionssuggested by the doctor's papers. *They • may not be £or*hoomin,g now, but readers will be on the gui vive; and in wai-obing for the incoming and the outgoings of lbs. cuckoo they may.pick-up many interesting' Nature-.notes worth recording. Who has seen* a-flight of cuckoos or gcdwits at sea 7 Do they iy too high to be ob&arvable, or do they jump off at dtusk and reach, the next laiwiing-plaoe bsfore daybreak? Who has g&en, migrating - birds ' resting .on the oosan? Who has •seen a> cuckoo lay an'eg^? Where? Who has-seen a ouckoo placing an egg in a nest? Eow does it do it?. With its beak or its toes?Where does it pass the night? When did you see it -first? What is the latest- date you "ha-ve eeen it? How many eggs does a cuckoo lay in «, season? Ha,ve you seen or heard, of a cuokoo building a jaest or feeding' its young-? If there are two cuckoo's- eggs in one nest were they placed there by the one cuckco, or by two? Have you eeen the cuokoo eating *eggs "or 'fruit? On the nauseous Hyetemera, annulata, or. magpie mcth grub or .caterpillar? (The caterpillar is " woolly" black in colour with dark-red dorsal and lateral lines. The moth is black with six white" spots on it.) Which migrate fiist—old or young? X old, male or female?— The doctor sa-ys the older males arrive first, then the females, then the younger one—afc least, I understand that. Is the cuckoo a ventriloquist? Another- question, ■ but noc connected with the ouckoo: Who has seen the muttonbird migrating south wards? Several to whom I have spoken, say they have seen it going north; but they hadn't seen it going ecuth. When geinje north, where does it go to? j