price as a curiosity. The much commoner Hemideina mega- 

 cephala Buller, which is also reported from Lord Howe Island, 

 is not greatly inferior in size, and the huge head and mandibles 

 of the male give it an equally formidable appearance ; and the 

 cave-dwelling species of Pachyrhamnia are noteworthy on 

 account of the inordinate length of their slender antennae. 

 The single Mantid, Orthoderes ministralis F., is found also in 

 Australia and Tasmania, and is perhaps a recent introduction, 

 and the Phasmidae, of which there are some twelve species, 

 include one or two forms of considerable size. Three or four 

 Blattidae at most are indigenous ; Plaiyzosteria vovae-zealandiae 

 Walk., a highly odoriferous cockroach which abounds under 

 loose bark, is familiar throughout the Dominion under the 

 . name of the " Maori Bug." The large and stout Anisolabis 

 littorea White is the only common species of the very few 

 endemic ForficuUdae; our common earwig has gained a foot- 

 ing in a few places, but is by no means the pest that it has 

 become in Tasmania. Finally, the only Siphonaptera which 

 are found in New Zealand appear to be the best-known and . 

 universal species of the Order, and two others attached to 

 domestic animals. Dr. Diefienbach, writing in 1843,* states 

 that " the natives say that fleas were introduced by Europeans, 

 and for that reason sometimes call them ' te pakeha nohinohi,' 

 the little stranger," but as early as 1773 the Maori huts at 

 Queen Charlotte's Sound were found by Capt. Cook's sailors 

 to be " exceeding full of vermin and particularly fleas," f and 

 these insects are no doubt coeval with the first human inhabit- 

 ants of the Islands. 



The insect fauna of the outlying islands of the New Zealand 

 region, though as yet imperfectly known, presents many 

 features of great interest. A few insects were obtained in 

 1909 by Mr. W. L. Wallace from the volcanic but forest-clad 

 Kermadec Islands, some 500 miles north-east of the North 

 Cape. The thirty-eight species of Coleoptera show marked 

 affinity with those of New Zealand, thirteen being described 

 as new by Major Broun. More than half of the 46 species of 



* Travels in New Zealand, II, Appendix, p. 291. 



t G. Forster, Voyage round the World in H.M.S. " Resolution," I, 

 p. 201. 



