8 Tr ansae tions . — Miscellaneous . 



casual crop. The fruit-trees, vines, currant, raspberry, and 

 gooseberry bushes bore well, and apples of many kinds, plums, 

 peaches, and apricots were particularly abundant and well 

 flavoured. Hops, which have always been a specialty in 

 Nelson, also yielded large and well-flavoured crops, and were 

 not molested by the fly ; but in the ten years during which I 

 remained there an appreciable increase took place in the 

 injuries caused by insects, and, although the generally dry 

 character of the climate, especially during the summer season, 

 was unfavourable to the development of many injurious forms, 

 the number both of species and individuals had increased very 

 greatly. 



In 1S60 I went to reside in Canterbury, which had then 

 been settled for between eight and nine years. Its progress 

 had been more rapid than that of either Wellington or 

 Nelson, because its settlers had been able to obtain from 

 both of these every form of vegetable and fruit which was 

 suitable for cultivation within its borders. To the northward 

 of Christchurch, around Kaiapoi and Eangiora, in the Lincoln 

 district, and in the immediate surroundings of Christchurch, 

 large areas had been brought under cultivation, and yielded 

 excellent returns ; but I well remember the extraordinary 

 clouds of moths of all kinds which rose from the ground as 

 one walked either through the tussock-covered areas or through 

 fields of cultivated grass. In the Eangiora district trenches 

 were often dug to intercept millions of caterpillars when 

 marching towards growing crops, and the ravages they com- 

 mitted where no means of protection existed were very serious. 

 I left Canterbury in 1867, and have ever since resided in Wel- 

 lington. By that time the numbers of destructive insects in 

 Canterbury had been greatly diminished by the constant burn- 

 ing of the tussock-grasses, besides which the sparrow had 

 been introduced and had been doing his work, and I noticed 

 that the yield of all grain-crops had increased in proportion 

 to the increase and spread of this most valuable ally of man. 



As regards Wellington, my observations have been prac- 

 tically restricted to the district of the Hutt. When I first 

 went to the district the beautiful Cicada circinata existed 

 there in immense numbers. This insect is especially destruc- 

 tive to fruit and other trees. It deposits its eggs in lines cut 

 somewhat deeply upon the principal branches, and the wound 

 thus made is never healed. Two or three years after the 

 wound has thus been made the wounded branch is sure to 

 break at the wounded part, and the symmetry of the tree 

 thereby seriously affected and its growth checked. This 

 insect is still procurable, but it found a determined and con- 

 stant enemy in the sparrow, which has already made it scarce. 

 The telegraph-poles were much frequented by them, and 



