338 INSECTS 



Cheetococcus parvus, Maskell [Cryptococais nudata, Brittin) 

 This species was found on Hoheria at Cashmere Hills, Christ- 

 church, by Mr G. Brittin, and described as a new species, in 1914. 

 It was later found to be a species which Mr Maskell had described 

 in 1897, as feeding on wild plums in China. In 1914 it was reported 

 by Mr Green as occurring at St Albans, Herts, England, on cherry 

 trees which had been imported from Japan. 



Sub-order ANOPLURA 



Family Pediculid^ 



Pediculus capitis, Nitzsch. Common Louse 



Sir Joseph Banks, describing the Maoris shortly after he first met 

 them in 1769, says: "In their hair was much oil, which had very 

 little smell, but more lice than ever I saw before^." 



Very common in New Zealand. 



Pediculus corporis, De Geer (P. vestimenti, Nitzsch). Body Louse 



Equally common with the preceding species. Mr Howes says, 

 what is perfectly correct, that both species are becoming scarcer. The 

 segregation of children in schools formerly tended to spread these 

 offensive insects, but closer inspection in later years has very much 

 reduced the pest. 



Phthirius inguinalis {Pediculus pubis). Crab Louse 



Mr Elsdon Best writing in June, says: "The Maori carried two 

 forms of louse, the body louse (Kutu), and a form called the Werau 

 that, he says, infests the aroaro (private parts) only. Both are said 

 to have been pre-European." 



I think it more probable that this parasite was introduced by 

 Europeans from the earliest days when they had connection with 

 Maori women. Banks says: 



Though we were in several of their towns, where young and old crowded 

 to see us, actuated by the same curiosity as made us desirous of seeing them, 

 I do not remember a single instance of a person distempered in any degree 

 that came under my inspection, and among the numbers of them that 

 I have seen naked, I have never seen an eruption on the skin or any 

 signs of one, scars or otherwise. Their skins, when they came off to us in 

 their canoes, were often marked in patches with a little floury appearance, 

 which at first deceived us, but we afterwards found that it was owing to 



^ In another passage Banlcs says: "the disgustful thing about them is the oil 

 with which they daub their hair, smelling something like a Greenland dock when 

 they are 'trying' whale blubber. This is melted from the fat either of fish or birds. 

 The better sort indeed have it fresh, and then it is entirely void of smell." 



