OTAGO INSTITUTE

Otago Witness, Issue 3584, 21 November 1922, Page 62

OTAGO INSTITUTE

The ordinary meeiing of the Otago Institute drew a fair attendance to tho Aluseum oil the 14th. Air H. Brasch presided, and one new member was elected. Air 11. D. Skinner placet 1 on view some selected objects from v.hat he described as a collection of extraordinarily line ethnographic exhibits which had been secured : for tho Aluseum by Mr AYili Fels during a recent visit to Sydney. Air Skinner had I selected three heads from New Guinea as | among the most interesting of these to | show'the audience, iie explained the high significance of the heads of chiefs or deceased relatives among many peoples, ihe custom grew up in certain places of preserving the skulls and moulding them with baked clay. Of this the New Guinea heads were a very fine illustration. He showed also two heads from Aluiekolo, in the New Hebrides, preservud in red unbaked clay. The marks on the New Guinea heads were the nearest approach ho knew to Alacri facial tattoo. tig, to which there was no parallel in Polynesia. -or indeed in Ale'anesia.. He contrasted a Alaori head with one of those from New Guinea to show from the striking similarity of marking that the Alaoris drew elements of culture from the same source as did the people of this particular part of New Guinea. Air .Morris Watt, F.K.S., delivered a paper on "Leaf Alimis,’ *the snail insects whose habit it is to burrow in leaves. Jio explair.ed that loaf miners woe not a spe. ies in liienisehi s, fait lhat there are leafmining moths, flies. beetles, and also h.\ menoptora. They knew there were about 200 of them in New Zealand. They had not come to liavi much significance in New Zealand vet, but they must he classed among harmful insects. The main reason why they were not more of a pest was that they were the victims of numerous parasites, 110 described how the parent moth deposited her eggs from leaf to leaf. The larva in the course of its tending left a gradually widening tunnel behind it in the leaf. T lie life of tho larva varied from several days to several years. '! he lecturer’s remarks were freely illustrated by diagrams on the board, and also by a copious exhibit of carefully arranged and classified leaves, showing the burrows of leaf miners. .Some of the larvae. when they had finished <ne leaf moved on to another, and so devoured perhaps four or five leaves. The lector, r went on to descrire the successive stages in the development of typical leaf miners, and concluded by showing a series i f most interesting slides illust a ting in f oseopio detail the activities of leaf miners ~! various types, in various stages of their life hstorv. 'the Hon. G. AI. Thomson expressed the indebtedness of the institute to Mr Watt for liis address. He had exhibited originality and skill in research that could be equalled by very few. It was on such work as this that researches with a definite practical object in view would have to be based. The hearty thanks of the meeting was conveyed to Air Waft by acclamation. Professor I). B. Waters followed with a paper on metallic alloys, and he was accorded the hearty thanks of the meeting.