Relic of a Failure.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20222, 5 February 1934, Page 6

Relic of a Failure.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond

F.L.S., F.Z.S.

Tyjß G. V. HUDSON caught one individual of the diamond-back moth on End:rby Island twenty-six years ago, when he was a member of a scientific expedition taken to the Sub-Antarctic Islands of New Zealand in the Hinemoa.

That single individual of this garden pest, accidentally introduced into New Zealand, seemed to him to be a relic of the Enderby Settlement, If so, it represented an early failure in the whaling industry. Eighty-four years ago, Mr Charles Enderby, of London, a member of a large whaling firm, obtained a grant from the Crown assigning the Auckland Islands as a whaling station to a company promoted by him. He formed the Enderby Settlement at Port Ross. The scheme was taken up in England enthusiastically. Mr Enderby received the grandiloquent title of Chief Commit sioner of the company and Lieutenant-Gov • ernor of the Auckland Islands. Before leaving England he was entertained at a farewell dinner attended by members of Parliament and other prominent persons. The whaling did not come up to expectations, and the climate and other conditions were not pleasant. Ths settlement was abandoned at the end of two or three years. Soon a small clearing in the bush, a lonely cemetery at Port Ross, and, if Mr Hudson’s impression is correct, a foreign species of moth, ■were the only signs on the scene of activities to mark the failure.