ARMIES OF INSECTS

Hokitika Guardian, 3 November 1927, Page 1

ARMIES OF INSECTS

PLAN TO FIGHT PESTS. HELP FOR NEW ZEALAND LONDON, Sept. 22. Scientists are pushing forward at the Rotliamstcd Institute at Ilarpcnden plans for the most wonderful war of insects the "world lias ever known, (writes tlio Herts correspondent- of a London paper). Armies of English beetles and eaterpillars arc to be let loose to aid the farmers of New Zealand in their unequal struggle against the four great plagues of their land—earwigs, gorsc. blackberry, brambles, and the ragwort wood which do incalculable damage. The poisonous ragwort weed is. perhaps. tbe most harmful of them nil; it is ruining many acres of sheep pn.s turo.

] !EET LE-G A TITERING. Tt is on the principle of “big liens have little fleas,” and so on that the scientists are working, and T have today been permitted to get an insight into their work at the Institute. I have spoken to experts who arc acting as recruiting sergeants for this

They have gathered beetles by ibo hundreds and earwigs by the thousand in the neighbourhood of Harpendcn. and have persuaded friends to help them in other districts, ready for the mass attack that is to be made in New Zealand when all the staff work is complete.

In receptacles on shelves in a department of the Institute T saw hundreds of long-nosed beetles from llarpemlon Common that are under orders for the New Zealand gorse front. These beetles, or weevils, as they are termed, live in the pods of tlio gorse and destroy the seeds. Tests which have been made encourage the lrelief that they will attack nothing else. TEA! PTATIO.XS. They are being tried in captivity on peas, beans vetches lupins and other plants of a similar order ami the- results have been entirely encouraging.

A first batch of 5000 of these weevils have already gone to New Zealand, and when the cold weather comes and makes their collection an easier matter another 5000 will be sent, packed carefully in moss in boxes, with pieces of cut potato to keep them cool.

Near the beetles I saw a number of boxes with glass sides, homes of innumerable earwigs. These earaigs are being kept because they are infested by parasites which will eventually cause their deaths, after which the parasites will go to New Zealand, and will there cause the deaths of many thousands of other earwigs, if all goes well. Air Davies, a Bangor graduate, who is Working in Ibis department under tbe supervision of Dr limns, told mo be collected tbe 1(1,000 earwigs to give ill is work n start in a fortnight, shaking them from tlio stems of plants, generally in into Lotties.

■‘lt was not really a difiieult task.” lie said, “because frequently you can shake fifty earwigs from a single stem.” A DISAPPOINTMENT. The tests with the caterpillars, which have to be soni. among the blackberry hushes, have not yet resulted ill the selection of a reliable specimen. One caterpillar, of which much was hoped, has during its trials at HarI•endeii, proved just as ready to eat raspberries and loganlierries as blackberries. iso lie will be a non-starter. I be caterpillar of tbe cinnabar moth is tbe chief bone against the ragwort weed. It eats ragwort voraciously, and f was shown fragments of stems that it lias tripped absolutely clean. It has refused to eat other plants except groundsel. Before tbe offensive really starts in Now Zealand all these creeping warriors will lie thoroughly tried under colonial conditions at the biological station there.