GLOW-WORM LIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 11

GLOW-WORM LIGHT

HAURAKI MINES

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day,

The presence in- several gold mine workings in the. Hauraki distridt of large numbers of the same type of glow-worms as those which have made Waitomo famous has been reported by Mr. M. H. Wynyard, of Auckland. It had been known for several years, he said, that glow-worms were in the Golden Dawn y Mines main adit level, which runs Off the. Paeroa-Waihi highway near the company's battery at Owharoa, but until■ recently- it was thought that they were similar to the wood or fungus glow-worms commonly seen in forests.

However, said Mr. Wynyard, recently he found the number of glow-worm lights had increased, and a more minute examination proved them to be identical with' those shed by the glowworms of Waitomo, with the same bluish light and pendant threads. The extraordinary thing about the glowworms was how they had ' developed there, so far from their known habitat.

This was not a solitary case. In the number 4 level of the Talisman Dubbo Company's mine at Karangahake, which the company had lately reopened, there were so many of the same kirrd of glow-worms that in one stretch of about 100 ft it was possible to extinguish the candle and still see th£ rails, walking safely along the duckboards in the light shed by the countless tiny glows on the sides.

Whereas at Waitomo visitors had to stop talking in case the noise made the glow-worm extinguish their light, and the presence of artificial iight was supposed to have the same effect,' at Talisman Pubbo blasts occurred at the face of the workings'and trucks of ore and mullock were trundled noisily past by miners with lighted candles or miners' lamps. The glow-worms ignored both noise and light. It might be that they had become accustomed to the conditions.