IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 4030, 9 June 1931, Page 7

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

USEFUL PROBOSCIS.

By

J. Drummond.

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

The rich costume of a large moth cajight in a room by Air E. H. Lee, Waip"awa, Hawke's Bay, so fascinated him that he watched it for hours. On putting out honey and water for it, he was surprised to see it project a long. thread-like proboscis and suck the noncy up. Having satisfied its appetite. Mr Lee states, it folded its proboscis into a small niche, and the proboscis disappeared between two small yellow jaws. The moth, Dasypodia selenophora, belongs to a great family, the Noctuidaj, each member of which usually has a very well developed proboscis. This is in the form of a tube. It is not a separate organ, but an extension of the two lower jaws, greatly drawn out, pressed together at the edges, but pulled apart at the owner’s will. When out of use, the proboscis of a moth or a butterfly is coiled in a spiral between jointed organs, the labial palpi. These organs usually are regarded as organs of touch, but Mr G V. Hudson, in “ The Butterflies and Moths of New Zealand,” states that their use is not properly understood, and that they seem to protect the proboscis. The proboscis of a moth or a butterfly is much less complex than the proboscis of a bee. It does not, by complicated details and delicacy of structure, create so much surprise and admiration. Anatomically, it is very different from the proboscis of other sucking insects. Near its tip there are minute structures, which may be used to tear the delicate tissues of blossoms. Suction is performed by a special apparatus, including a' tiny bag and muscles. Sir J. Arthur Thomson, of Aberdeen, found in the proboscis of the lepidoptera a beautiful structure, with all the marks of efficiency, although in many butterflies it seems to be of very little use. He does not deny that the proboscis often is part of an _important suction pump: but he points out that there are butterflies which regard feeding as unimportant. As caterpillars they were vora cions. In the perfect stage of a highei life they are above the desires of th° flesh. A butterfly that takes little nourishment may have an elaborate proboscis. Tn this case, members of the species, in ancient days, may have sipped nectar from flowers, but gradually left to the caterpillars the work of laying up stores of nourishment, while the sucking organs, now useless, arc retained in the insects' perfect stage.

The most conspicuous feature of Dasypodia selenophora is the eye-marks on its forewings, set in a background of old gold shaded over with smoky brown, according to Mr Lee’s description, and of a very rich brown according to Mr Hudson’s description of another individual of the species. The large eye-marks are described by Mr Lee as deep peacock-blue with a black centre, by Mr Hudson as steely-blue crescents filled in the centre with black Close to the eye-marks there are fine pencilled wavy lines. Looking down upon the moth, the eye-marks, the pencilling, and other markings gave Mr Lee an impression of the face of a tiger. The eyemarks, the body, and the partly-opened wings seemed to Mr Hudson to resemble the head of an owl, perhaps terrifying any small bird that might wish to kill the moth.

Few’ conspicuous New Zealand moths and butterflies have escaped Mr Hudson’s attention. Dasypodia is given a good deal of space and a beautiful portrait in colours in the handsome volume he dedicated to the Dominion’s lepidoptera. Firstrhe deals with this moth’s egg. only about one twenty-fourth of an inch in diameter, dark blackish-green, flat, covered with many prominent branching ribs. Breaking out of the egg-prison there comes a slender, cylindrical caterpillar only three-sixteenths of an inch long, but with a large head and a warty and bristly body. It throws off its grey-green coat to wear dull black. When it is a grownup caterpillar, full tw’o inches and a-half long, it puts on a more beautiful garment, but is by no means gaudy, and is inconspicuous as it rests sluggishly’ on the stems of its food plant.

When the time for change comes it gathers a few leaves, fastens then together with silk, and prepares to pass about two months in a state of inertia as a chrysalis, dark red, with a bluish or violet bloom. From the chrysalis the perfect- moth emerges. Mr Lee caught his individual early in May. Mr Hudson reports that the perfect moths usually appear in February) March, and April, but individuals that have hibernated may be seen in October and November, when the eggs are laid. The species occurs throughout the North Island. In the South Island it has been noted at Nelson, Richmond, Hokitika, Christchurch, Invercargill, and Dog Island, in Foveaux Strait.

“I am greatly interested in the occurrence in New Zealand of the cabbagewhite butterfly,” Mr S. Lindsay wrote from Sydney street, Spreydon, Christchurch. “If it becomes established, it will be a terrible pest. This species was, perhaps, the first butterfly I ever caught when I was a boy,. My father gave me a penny a dozen to keep them off his cabbages, and I made quite a lot of money in the spring months.”

Several correspondents have complained that the skylark docs not sing as loudly

and as often in New Zealand as it did in former years. Nobody in New Zealand, apparently, has timed the skylark’s son”. This has been done in the Old Country by Mr N. Roilin, who has published his observations in the Scottish Naturalist. He timed more than 1000 songs. There were variations in length according to the time of day, the month, and the idiosyncrasy of the individual birds, and the range was from 1 minute to 19 minutes The average length was only 2.22 minutes

A small colony of pied stilts, nesting in a swamp, was seen by Mr S. W. Jones between Blackhead and Porangahau, south of Napier. The nests, he states, were merely small heaps of weeds, built up above the water. He found the short there a good place for observing sea birds and shore birds. Amongst the birds he saw were the small terns the red-billed gull, a large tern, probably the Caspian, the oyster catcher, and its black-coated, crimson-stockinged relative, the red-bill. Bitterns are present there, and pukekos in their hundreds. Mr Jones is a gardener, with experience in the Old Country, and he recommends the introduction into New’ Zealand of more English birds. On his list are some of the warblers, “ useful insect eaters as well as beautiful songsters,” the pied and the grey wagtails, “hardy and beautiful,” the' stonechats. the whinchats, and some of the titmice.

Mrs W. H. S. Roberts writes from Marapua, Thames street, Oamaru: “I heard ’a flutter in our sitting room, and saw a shining cuckoo fly’ against the window. I do not know if it came down the chimney or in at the window. It seemed very tired, and I caught it quite easily, liberating it later. The next day I saw it again in the garden. We also see the little warbler and a few waxeyes, but these birds do not come in the flocks like they used to come in two or three years ago. We have not seen a fantail since the early spring.”