THE INVASION FROM THE NORTH 349 



hammer he claims his place in the sun, his share of the good things 

 provided by man. It is highly improbable that the chaffinch could 

 have escaped detection from one or another of my observers north of 

 Gisborne. 



Prominent amongst annuals fashionable in the early 'nineties were 

 Shirley poppies. It was in a gorgeous bed of them that the first 

 bumble-bee was noticed on Tutira "in 1902. The following year I 

 noticed a second specimen also in the flower - garden ; indeed, until 

 red clover was sown as a fodder-plant, I never remember to have seen 

 one on the station except in the garden. 



The history of the bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris) in New Zealand 

 is as follows : After several failures they were liberated on the 

 Matamata estate, in the Thames district of the Auckland Province, 

 in '84 only two queens, however, surviving out of one hundred 

 and forty-five. In '85 more successful shipments reached the South 

 Island, and from there the North Island was again stocked. From 

 Matamata stragglers reached Tutira five or six seasons later. 



The experiment has been regarded as a success, and certainly 

 since then large quantities of red-clover seed have been marketed. 

 The bumble-bee has got the credit for this result ; whether the alien 

 insect altogether deserves it is, I think, more than doubtful. Red-clover 

 blossom, to my certain knowledge, was fertilised long before the introduc- 

 tion of the bumble-bee. In 1880 I was a cadet on Peel Forest Station in 

 South Canterbury. Even then I was on the watch for new plants and 

 aliens in strange places ; at any rate, I recollect scrambling up and gather- 

 ing ripe clover-heads on the forest cutting between Peel Forest village 

 and Holnicote, the beautiful homestead of the late Hon. John Barton 

 Acland. Rubbed in my hand, these heads gave an excellent sample of 

 plump seed ; good seed was to be had on Tutira, too, long prior to 

 the introduction of the bumble-bee. On a quarter-acre patch, ploughed 

 and sown down in the 'seventies by the Stuart Brothers and Keirnan, 

 it was always obtainable until the plants were eaten out. Lastly, in 

 1909, the Waterfall Paddock 300 acres of cow-grass was thoroughly 

 fertilised. There was so heavy a seeding that we thought of cutting 

 and thrashing, and only did not do so because of difficulties in regard 

 to the hire of machinery and traction over bad roads. The fertilisation 

 of this clover -field was, I believe, accomplished by a small greyish 

 moth, millions of which hid in the crop or rose in clouds if disturbed. 



