Dkummond. — Oil Introduced Birds. 229 



devoured by caterpillars. In tlie same province a settler who 

 was driving his dray along a road drove through a colony of 

 caterpillars which happened to he crosdng the road at the time. 

 They were present in such countless numbers that the wheels of 

 his dray were in a puddle, caused by the crushing of the insects. 

 A Press Association telegram published in the leading New Zea- 

 land newspapers about that time stated that the morning and 

 evening trains between Waverley and Nukumaru, on their way to 

 Wanganui, were brought to a standstill owing to countless thou- 

 sands of caterpillars being on the rails, which had to be swept and 

 sanded before the trains could continue their journeys. In the 

 neighbourhood of Turakina, in the Rangitikei District, an army 

 of caterpillars, hundreds of thousands strong, was overtaken by 

 a train as the insects were crossing the rails to reach a field of 

 oats. Thousands of them were crushed under the wheels of the 

 engine, and the train suddenly stopped. It was found that the 

 wheels had become so greasy that they revolved without advanc- 

 ing, as they could not grip the rails. The guard and the engine- 

 driver placed sand on the rails, and a start was made. It was 

 found, however, that during the stoppage the caterpillars had 

 crawled in thousands over the engine and all over the carriages, 

 inside and outside. 



A Hawke's Bay gentleman who filled in one of the circulars 

 states that caterpillars have covered his paddocks so thickly as 

 to give colour to the pasture, even from a distance, and it was 

 considered worth while to drive a mob of sheep backwards and 

 forwards over the insects in order to destroy them. At Dun- 

 sandel, in North Canterbury, crops of oats of 60 or 70 bushels 

 were completely threshed by the caterpillars. Their numbers 

 increased in proportion to the quantities of food they consumed. 

 They marched from field to field in grand processions, leaving 

 behind them the abomination of desolation. 



A Dunsandel farmer says : " I have been forty years in 

 Canterbury. I have seen some bad work by the small birds, 

 but I have also seen some bad work by the caterpillars. I 

 once saw the caterpillars coming out of one man's paddock and 

 crossing the road into another man's paddock. I made all 

 haste to tell the man, and we got about sixteen hundred sheep 

 on the road and killed the insects. The road was black with 

 them, and as warm weather came on the smell wa« something 

 awful." 



Dr. C. Morton Anderson, of Christchurch, also gives his 

 testimony. He states that twenty-five years ago an old farmer 

 in the Amberley district, North Canterbury, showed him a 

 splendid crop of wheat and said that he had seen just as fine a 

 crop, t\venty years previously, destroyed by caterpillars. 



