SEARCH FOR INSECT ALLIES

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1930, Page 16

SEARCH FOR INSECT ALLIES

CAWTHRON INSTITUTE RECRUITS DR. MILLER’S EXTENSIVE TOUR. During his recent trip abroad, Dr. D. Miller, head of the Entomological Department of the Cawthron Institute, Nelson, represented New Zealand at the Entomological Conference in London. He also toured extensively, especially in. South America, in the interest of entomological research and organisation as it affects the Dominion. He covered some 38,000 miles by sea, land, and air. He got into direct personal touch with entomological research stations and workers throughout the world, and the work in New Zealand has been closely linked up with that in other countries, to their mutual advantage. The results of his tour will be embodied in an official report.

In an interview given in Nelson after hi.s return home, Dr. Miller said he found the labzratories in Great Britain dealing with economic entomology wonderfully efficient, and most valuable and important work was being done. The Imperial Bureau of Entomology, with its parasite laboratory at Farnham Royal, was perhaps the most fundamentally important entomological organisation in the British Empire. To take New Zealand’s case, they were carryinn- out important investigations in connection with the Dominion’s weed problems, with the earwigs, codlin moth, and grass grub pests, ho’rntail borer which attacked the pine trees, and the spruce aphis, and the laboratory in question was supplying New Zealand with a large number of parasites needed for the work here. It was significant, and indeed a tribute to the extent of the work in -New Zealand, that more than half the'\parasites studied at Farnham Royal were shipped to New Zealand. On the Continent, Dr. Miller found the most up-to-date and extensive entomological services were in Germany, though on the Riviera in. France there were two fine laboratories 'supported by the United States Government. His travels took him to Chile, amongst other places, and he spent a> considerable time amongst the Aravcanian Indiana. There were two main tribes, the Mapuche (the people of the earth, who were a warlike tribe) and the Luiliche (or people of the south, who were peaceful). Dr. Millers expeditions took him into the country of the Mapuche, and although he felt rather sluiky about going alone after all he had feared, he soon found one could become quite friendly with. them. He related an interesting story of his visit to the cattle tick infested district of Montana, North America, where a compulsory search of every article of clothino- had to be made every four hours. reason for the four-hourly search is that the' ticks which transmit the Rocky Mountain spotted fever, do not bite their host until after 12 hours’ prospecting. This period of probation crives the human being an opportunity, 0 laborious though it is, which few are slow to use. . Mr. Miller went to this district to sD’dy the work on the parasite of the cattie tick. Fortunately, said Dr. Miller, they now were able to inoculate against the disease, but prior to that 95 per cent, of the cases of Rocky Mountain spotted feyer which was spread by these ticks’were fatal. The virulence* of Rocky Mountain spotted fjver varied in. different parts of tn® district. . • The laboratory, situated at Hamilton, in the Bitter Root Valley, * where the control of fever and tick was being studied, w-hs one of the best equipped and efficient laboratories in the United States As a result of his tour, Dr. Miller has brought ■ back quite a number of insects; his luggage, in fact, must ha,ye been quite interesting. Unescorted insects in their voyages from foreign parts to. New Zealand have on previous occasions often arrived jri a moribund or dead state, .which is not surprising seeing that the care of bugs does not come normally .under the provisions of nautical training. But Dr. Miller tended his fellow-passengers with care, and they included insects ef many sorts destined to put an end to various noxious weed menaces in the Dominion. Amongst them was an insect 1 from Chile which will attack p : ri piri. Consignments of this had been sent to New Zealand before through the good offices of a Chilean monk who combined entomology with his devotions. But the mortality ■ amongst the previous shipments was great. One of the most important parasites brought back is one which puts an end to the codlin moth, a bane of fruitgrowers. Dr. Miller also brought back a new strain of apple, said to be all that can be desired from a commercial point of yiaw, and to be unaffected by woolly aphis.- ’■ . Acclimatisation of imported insects is one of the difficulties to be contended with in the experiments with imported parasites, and in the process mortality is often high. But at the Cawthron Institute patient work has been proceeding for years. Some excellent results have already been achieved, and as the result of Dr. .Miller’s visit abroad a fresh impetus will be given to the work.