IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 9

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

THE FROG-HOPPERS. Bf J DRUMMOND. f L-S., V.E.B. A drawing of a somewhat strange-look-ing insect, mostly brown in colour, with white markings, and about three-eighths of an inch long, sent by Mr A. Watson, Pong&kawa, Bay of Plenty, represents one of the frog-hoppers, a group that does not seem to have received much attention from New Zealand entomologists, although it is very interesting, not to say fascinating. Frog-hoppers have sharp beaks, equipped with needles, kept in a green tube. These 'are used for sucking the sap of plants. Mr Watson has found frog-hoopers on the stems of makomako and tutu, out as they appear in the busy season he has not been able to observe theim closely. He states that they first appear without wings. They then are in their immature stage. The absence or presence of wings is the only means of distinguishing the immature from the mature. When they leave the eggs there are no signs of wings, but the beginning of wings may be seen after several moults have been undergone. At the final moult, the wings expand until they cover J he whole body. The female frog-hopper lays her eggs in the crevices of bark. A grub, on emerging, uses its beak and its head, which is bent down upon its breast, to suck the sweet sap of plants. The supply is abundant. The frog-hopper soon has more than it needs. On the under side of its body there is a kind of canal, in which air is held. Working its body up and down, it mixes the air with the surplus sap. Wax from skin-glands and ferment from the food canal are added. The whole is thoroughly whipped into white foam, known in the Old Country as cuckoo-spit. The foam need not be regarded with repulsion. It is quite clean, and it does no harm to the plant. In it, the young frog-hopper lives in moisture, and, it is believed, protected to some extent from enemies, as no birds and few insects except wasps like the foam. The frog-hopper there passes from the grub stage to the chrysalis stage, growing • and moulting until it is a grown-up, with functioning wings. It then leaves the frothy home that has sheltered it. An English nat. -alist has described the froghopper as an insect that saves its life by blowing soap-bubbles, and that lives under water and yet in the open air, conspicuous yet concealed, in the sunshine, yet cool: New Zealanders, with the knowledge they possess, would not accept the theory that the foam is spat out by cuckoos as they fly about seeking for other birds’ nests in which to place their eggs. This belief stems to have originated with a Bishop of Seville some 1300 years ago. He believed, also, that the foam made the insect he found 'nside, instead of the insect making the foam. He was wrong again in . guessing that the insect became a cicada, but not very wrong, as cicadas and frog-hoppers are fairly closely related. Mr G. V. Hudson, Karori, Wellington, although busy with his big new work on New Ze-.land moths and bui •- flies, which naturalists are looking forward to with pleasure, has kindlv identified the frog-hopper from Mr Watson’s drawing. He has no doubt that its name is Scolypoda australis, a species which, he states, is found in only the northern parts of the North Island. Another drawing sent bv Mr Watson is recognised by Mr Hudson as a member of the Locustidse family. Mr Watson asks if it is a locust, a grasshopper, or a cicada. It is not a cicada. There is some c <nfusion in the public mind as to locusts and grasshoppers. Zoologists do not m..v include in the Locustidm family insects popularly known as locusts. Mr Watson’s insect—long antennas, fore-wings and body bright green, hind-wings daphanous and l«ace-like—comes under the popular denition of a grasshopper. Mr Hudson knows it well. He states that its presence may be detected kz a chirping sound, heard in different directions, soon sunset and till 8 or 9 p.m. The sound is prodi ;ed' by the wing-cases, which the males may be seen rubbing vigorously together. The females make no sound. But they may be distinguished by a short, curved ovipositor, for denositin their eggs, at the *i n x °/l body. Mr Hudson has found that these insects’ colour and their leaflike shape make them inconspicuous. Even when their presence is indicated bv their sound, it is difficult find them in the herbage. In Mr Hudson’s ‘Manual of Entomology they appear as Xiphidium niaoncum, but their name lias been changed to Cadicia olivacea. They are fairly well distributed. What ever damage the litttle owl, or grey owl, may do amongst sparrows and other introduced birds that should be kept in check it apparently will not counteract its usefulness fa turning a baneful attention to native birds A Dargaville correspondent reports that when he was in Southland in 1919 he saw a little owl for the first time. It was midday. He had gone to see his old .home. A belt of native bush about a quarter of a mile wide had been left. The owl was sitting on a dead tree trunk there. Tomtits and fantails, darting about, took no notice of the owl, even when it flew out every few minutes. A song-thrush sat and sang on the same tree. The same correspondent, when camped close to a forest stream, was interested in kingfishers, which were plentiful. One of them found it good sport to watch the camp cat, which was fat and sleek, as all camp cats should be, and which liked to sleep in che sunshine. The kingfisher liked to swoop down at its lazy enemy and give a sudden loud squeak. It made a mistake one day. The cat was not asleep. It iuet reached out and pulled tho Kingfisher in.

Hawks, starlings, seagulls and terns are plentiful at this correspondent’s home at Dargaville. He hears the morepork owl every night; pheasants are fairly plentiful; there are a few wrens, yellow-hammers, blackbirds and tuis; song-thrushes are scarce; a pair of banded dotterels are soen occasionally. The correspondent has always found the vegetable caterpillar where tne maire grows, and he found ono vegetable caterpillar with a maire seedling springing from it His favourite bird is the wood

robin. Although he has not seen it for 30 years, he often thinks of it. When it is in good voice, he states there is no other songster to compare with it. When he was splitting posts in the bush, woodrobins came to gal her huhu grubs. A particular wood-robin seamed to follow the party of workers. It was caught, marked, and liberated. When the party began work a mile away the same wood-robin attended them. For 36 years this observer has noted the appearance of the shining cuckoo. Amongst the places are Mataura, Riversdale Taieri Beach, Table Hill, Dunedin, Rangituau, Makatote, Te Aroha, Newmarket. Thames, Auckland Domain, Mamakau, Kaihu, Kohukohu. Orere and Dargaville Most of the dates are in October, a few are in Npvember, and one is in September. Mr H. Trevor Fairbrother, Carterton has answered a question in this column as to whether termites swarm at night or by day. “In the Solomon Islands,” he writes, they swarm of an evening and usually about an hour before or for two hours after sunset. Warm rain seems to bring them about earlier in the day. A termitary there is seldom more than 18 inches high, and is in. no way like the anthills in some countries, although its construction is equally intricate. The termites' wings do not seem to be fastened firmly to the bodies, but drop off at the slightest touch. While the swarming insects are attracted by lights, and suicide freely around every lamp and fire, they seem to be present also in the darkest parts. They appear to cover a large area at swarming time, plantations and villages miles apart, and schooners at anchor being plastered with them at the same time.” The long-tailed cuckoo receives much less attention from observers than its brighter cousin, the shining cuckoo. Mr H. S. Matthews, Kaitaia, North Auckland, reports that he saw it on March 12 last. As he had not seen it for about 30 years he had considered it extinct in his district. The one that appeared in trees that surround his house on March 12,- was very shy. It kept mostly in the thickest foliage, but darted into the open, apparently for food. About 4 p.m. Mr Matthews came upon it suddenly. In his haste to get awav it flew into six-feet wire nettng that surrounds the garden. When clear, it settled on a tree and gasped for breath, and then again darfrad into the thickest foliage it could find. Residents told Mr Matthews that the long-tailed cuckoo was plentiful in that district in the early davs of the Kaitaia mission station. It was often seen and heard in the fruit and ornamental trees that surrounded the Rev. Joseph Matthews’ mission house. In recent vears it has been seen and heard by people in the district, but is rare there. In the beginning of last March it was seen on the road between Kaitaia and Hokianga An old Maori told Mr Matthews that he now seldom sees the kockoea—usually corrupted by Epropeans into ward with sounds like “qiioi-quoi-a” but hears its harsh notes at night from time to time. Mr Matthews asks for more detailed information about the long-tailed cuckoo than can be given in a column. It bears little outward resemblance to the handsome shining cuckoo, but ii has the same habit of placing its eggs in other birds’ nests, and it migrates in the same way to and from New Zealand, keeping the same Unstable. Its features are hawk-like, and its tail is long and wedge-shaped. The range of its migration, as far as is known, is from New Zealand to Polynesia and the Solomon Islands. Mr Trevor Fairbrother, who ha? spent years in the Solomons may know somethin? of the long-tailed cuckoos habits there. Its brownish-olive egg is very much like tho chi"!r>«r cuckoos egg.