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above ground. This last depredates on corn in newly-broken lands, 

 both of native and timothy sod ; but I have failed to find them in blue- 

 grass sod. The worm is the larva of Hadena stipata Morr, a species 

 not previously known to injure corn. Their method of work is such 

 that an attacked plant never recovers, and one worm may destroy a whole 

 hill of corn, going from one plant to another without coming to the sur- 

 face. Larvae continued to work up to the 1st of July, and the moths 

 appeared about the 25th of that month. Serious damage has been re- 

 ported in various parts of the State, specimens accompanying the com- 

 plaints. I found them the most abundant in low, recently-drained, and 

 newly-broken lands. 



THE NEW ZEALAND KATIPO. 



By R. Allan Wight, Auckland, New Zealand. 



The Maori name of this spider is " Katipo," the proper name, Latro- 

 dectus scelio and it belongs to the family Theridiidse. All old colonists, 

 natives, and scientific men in New Zealand are agreed that it is danger- 

 ously poisonous. The poison is of an extraordinarily virulent nature, and 

 fatal cases are not wanting. The habitat of this spider is strictly con- 

 fined to the sea-shore. There are no other poisonous spiders known in 

 New Zealand. Mr. A. T. Urquhart, who is a very old colonist, and our 

 best arachnologist, says that there are species of Agalenidae and Tegen- 

 aria, which inhabit gardens and old houses, but they have no resem- 

 blance to the Katipo. The only way to account for Mr. Taylor's state- 

 ment that there are two species of Katipo is by supposing he must have 

 taken the male and female for distinct species, and that by the term 

 "red spider" he must have meant " spider with a red spot." 



As for the mistake Dr. Wright makes in saying that there is an in- 

 land species that inhabits gardens and spins a "slight web," it is easily 

 accounted for. Before Dr. Wright came to New Zealand the natives 

 were more industrious (i. e., they had more slaves), and they used to con- 

 vey many canoe loads of sea-shells and sand far inland to form beds for 

 the Kumera, or sweet potato. When I first saw these beds in deserted 

 gardens, I was told the sea had left them there, but geological reasons 

 did not bear the idea out, and I soon found the natives had transported 

 them for the Kumera beds. My further doubts, as to whether the niol- 

 lusk had been brought in them, for manure, were settled by the pres- 

 ence of the Katipo, which was proof of the shells having been dry and 

 brought from above high-water mark. In these days before the Pheas- 

 ant and some other birds were imported, the coast was full of the spiders, 

 the natives used to burn the grass before sleeping ou it, and when they 

 removed the shells, large numbers of spiders were transported with 

 them. This accounts for the majority of cases of persons bitten by Kati- 

 poes being native women and old women, because the work of the Kumera 

 beds generally falls to them. And moreover the most fatal cases are in 



