SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



29 



is the fact that it was established in New Caledonia 

 in 1889 or 1890. 



During my before-mentioned visit to St. Helena, 

 I found in the public garden in the town a minute 

 shell described by the late Mr. Benson as a new 

 species, under the name of Achatina (Stenogyra) 

 veru. Mr. Edgar Smith has lately seen the type 

 shells, and says they are an American species, 

 Cionella aperta, Gould. It has probably been intro- 

 duced in the earth of some Wardian case of 

 plants. 



In 1S61 I accompanied His Excellency Sir 

 George Grey, to New Zealand, as his secretary. 

 He took with him on board H.M.S. "Cossack," 

 Capt, Moorman (now Admiral Moorman, residing 

 near me at Exmouth), several coops of Cape 

 "partridges" and "pheasants" (Francolinns afer 

 and F. damator), and a lot of tortoises. I had the 

 pleasure of assisting in liberating the two former in 

 the " domain," near Auckland, the latter on the 

 Island of Rangitoto, off the harbour. Do any of 

 these still exist, or are there any descendants ? 

 While I was there a consignment of small birds for 

 the Government arrived in Auckland from England. 

 I constructed an aviary for them, by enclosing a 

 portion of the verandah of Government House 

 with wire, which I worked as a bird cage with my 

 own hands. I remember chaffinches, linnets, 

 greenfinches, larks, and, I think, robins, and black- 

 birds and thrushes. Are any of these now found 

 near Auckland ? 



On one of our journeys along the south end of 

 the North Island, we were entertained at a Mission 

 Station (I forget the name of it). The missionary, 

 with great pride, showed us a fine ram and ewe of 

 some superior breed of sheep — Rambouillet, I 

 think — which he had imported. After admiring 

 them, he said he had found a new plant in the 

 field wherein they were kept, which he then 

 showed us, asking if we knew it. My reply was 

 the destruction of what I hope was the first and 

 last plant, in New Zealand, of the dreaded 

 " Bathurst-burr " (Xanthium spinosum). I can ap- 

 proximately fix the arrival of this horrid pest into 

 the Cape Colony. Between 1855 and i860 a ship 

 laden with wool, from Australia, was wrecked on 

 Cape L'Agulhas. Many of the bales were washed 

 up and salvaged, being spread out to dry on the 

 shore, and subsequently sold on the spot by 

 auction. Some were bought by a gentleman living 

 at Simon's Town, near Cape Town, transported 

 thither, and again spread out on some open land to 

 dry. From these two localities specimens were 

 forwarded to me of a new unknown plant that had 

 sprung up in considerable quantities. Dr. Pappe, 

 a well-known botanist, residing in Cape Town, 

 identified it as the Bathurst-burr. From the first- 

 named place it spread all over the country, official 

 reports showing that it almost always appeared 



first along the roadsides, evidently dropped from the 

 fleeces of animals travelling along them. The 

 burrs must have been in the fleeces of the wool 

 laid out to dry on the shore after the shipwreck. 



A few days after my arrival in New Caledonia I 

 saw, far up in the sky, what I at first took for an 

 enormous flight of swallows. On one of them dart- 

 ing down, I perceived that I was mistaken, and that 

 the objects were butterflies ! — Danais plcxippus. Now 

 I knew from my late venerable friend, Dr. Bennett, 

 the naturalist, that this insect had found its way 

 into Australia some years previously, and as New 

 Caledonia had only been settled for about twenty 

 years, I set to work to find out how it came hither. 

 The first person I consulted solved the question. 

 My venerable friend, Pere Montrouzier, another 

 celebrated naturalist, informed me that the larvae 

 had come in a Wardian case, containing plants, 

 consigned to him. The imago first appeared in 

 his garden, and for some time confined themselves 

 to it, and its neighbourhood, till suddenly, finding 

 a suitable food-plant, they spread abroad. It is 

 now all over the island, I believe, but is in such 

 profusion round Noumea, that I once saw the outer 

 fence of the " Ferme Modele," at Yahoue, fully a 

 mile in length and consisting of three or four bars 

 of iron wire and a wooden top rail, so completely 

 occupied by the empty glassy pupa-cases, as to 

 look like so many bars of silver. 



The food-plant of this insect is also an intro- 

 duced plant. The Pere told me that previous to 

 the arrival of the insect, a gendarme coming from 

 Tahiti brought with him a pillow stuffed with the 

 silky product of an asclepiad. This silk is attached 

 to the seed in the shape of a parachute, and thus, 

 being carried by the wind, disseminates the plant. 

 The gendarme emptied out his pillow to refill it 

 with better cotton, and unfortunately a few seeds 

 remained among the silk. They fell upon good 

 ground and brought forth not only "an hundred- 

 fold," but a hundred million fold, for this noxious, 

 poisonous weed is now found all over the island ! 

 So poisonous is it, that I have had instances 

 brought to my knowledge of peacocks and fowls 

 killed by eating the larvae of the Danais plexippus, 

 that fed on the plant. 



When the French took possession of the island, 

 and brought over the Roman Catholic missionaries, 

 the latter brought from Tahiti slips of Callicarpa 

 luntana, Rox., to make fences for their mission 

 ground. The blackberry-like berries proved 

 'grateful to some of the New Caledonian birds, 

 and the small seeds, passing undigested through 

 their bodies, have so spread the plant, that between 

 it and the asclepiad, thousands of acres of grass 

 lands have been destroyed, part rendered im- 

 penetrable to cattle, and part covered by the 

 poisonous plant. 



" Otter bourne" Budleigh Salterton; March, 1894. 



