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Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17117, 12 April 1921, Page 2

The period at which fleas first arrived in iNew Zealand is discussed by Commander Janies Walker, in a paper read beiore the annual meeting of tno Souiety of London, in January. In 1848 Dr. Diffenbaoh, the naturalist with the New Zealand Compan's expedition, stated that the natives said that tleas were introduced by tho Europeans, and for that reason they were sometimes called "te pakeha nohinohi," the little stranger. Commander Walker, however, points out that as early as 1773, the Maori huts at Queen Charlotte Sound were found by Captain Cook's sailors to be "exceedingly full of vermin, and particularly fleas." As a result of this statement recorded by Mr George Forester, the naturalist who accompanied Captain Cook, Commander Walker opines that the first flea and the first human inhabitant probably arrived in company. The white man also has been Warned by the Maori for the introduction of the mosquito, but Commander Walker gives no credence to this contention and holds that the true aboriginal New Zealand mosquito is quite as. blood-thirsty as anything that could be imported from elsewhere. It thus appears that there,, are at least two pestß by which the nocturnal slumbers of the Maori were disturbed before the white man contaminated this Arcadia.