78 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



When the leaves fall there are many agencies ready to 

 hurry them to that decay by which their constituents are 

 once more returned to the soil in a condition fit to be used 

 as food by the higher types of plants. Countless hosts of 

 bacteria and numerous species of fungi, especially of the 

 minute forms known as moulds, hasten on this work. They 

 decompose the highly-complicated substances of which the 

 plant tissues are composed into much simpler materials, 

 which are capable of absorption by living plants, and thus 

 the cycle of chemical change goes on unceasingly. 



The ground, too, under and among the dead leaves, is 

 full of animal life, much of which is concerned directly or 

 indirectly with the same process. Reference has already 

 been made to the action of worms in carrying vegetable 

 matter to considerable depths into the soil, but there is an 

 equally important work which they do in leaving their 

 castings, composed almost entirely of earth, on the surface 

 of the ground near their burrows. Millipedes, larvae of 

 many insects, terrestrial Crustacea, snails, and other 

 animals help in this work. The concealed (cryptozoic) 

 fauna of New Zealand was investigated by Professor 

 Dendy, formerly of Christchurch, and it is a very interest- 

 ing study. Special groups of it have been worked up by 

 other specialists ; for example, Professor Chilton, now of 

 Canterbury College, has made a study of the terrestrial 

 Crustacea, the woodlice and their allies, so that a good 

 deal is now known about these little creatures. But just 

 as in the more visible world of animal life there are 

 carnivorous as well as herbivorous creatures, and "big 

 fleas have little fleas to bite 'em," so in this hidden life on 

 the surface of the soil there are numerous forms of animals 

 which prey on the others. Spiders, centipedes (popularly 

 known as "Jenny hundred-feet"), beetles, and many car- 

 nivorous larva? of other insects, planarians or flat worms, 

 and perhaps also some of these crustaceans already referred 

 to, are all feeders on flesh dead or alive. 



One of the most remarkable of these "hidden" animals, 

 which may be found among decayed wood in the bush or 

 in localities where bush has formerly occurred, is known 



