190 



NATUEAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



The grafted snake he has now is 

 apparently in good health and the 

 joined parts are perfectly knitted 

 together. Its body is of the sand 

 snake and the tail is a garter 

 snake's. — Set en tific A m erica n . ' 



The Strangest Insect in the 

 World. 



With reference to the article on 

 the above -subject will you permit 

 me in the interests of scientific pur- 

 suit to remark that up to the pres- 

 ent the moth which produces the 

 caterpillar attacked by the fungus 

 Sphaeria Robertsii is not known to 

 scientists, though it is surmised to 

 be a member of the genus Hepialus 

 or swift moths of Europe? It was 

 formerly thought to be Hepialus 

 vireseens, the giant green moth of 

 New Zealand, called by the Maoris 

 pepc, but that cannot be, as vires- 

 eens is a wood borer and undergoes 

 all its transformations chiefly in 

 the lower parts of the trunk of the 

 New Zealand currant or wine ber- 

 ry tree, Aristotelia raccniosa, and 

 occasionally in other trees, such as 

 manuka, leptospermum, the black 

 maire, Olea apeie/a, etc. 



The vegetable caterpillar, hotete 

 (Maori), evidently pupates in the 

 ground, and some must escape the 

 attacks of the fungus spores to per 

 petuate the species, though the 

 pupa has yet to be satisfactorily 

 accounted for. From information 

 obtained by my eldest son, G. H. 

 Grapes, from the Maoris at Otaki, 

 North Island, it appears that the 

 grub or caterpillar pepeaweto 

 (Maori ) which begets this curiosity 

 is dark olive green, about three 

 inches long and found an inch or 

 so beneath the surface of the soil, 

 but, so far as I can ascertain, has 

 never been seen by an entomolo 

 gist. Specimens in my possession 

 prove that the head is not the sole 

 point of attack, but that both ex 

 tremities are attacked indifferently; 

 indeed, my experience tends to the 

 belief that the anal extremity is the 

 oftener selected by this singular 

 and mysterious parasitical growth. 

 The twig-like woody appendage is 

 sometimes forked, and in one of 

 my specimens exceeds 9 inches in 

 length. The attacks of Robertsii 

 seem altogether confined to the ex 

 tremities of the caterpillar, unlike 

 an allied British species, Isaria far 

 inosa, which attacks the larva; of 

 the cabbage moth, Mamestra bras 

 sieee, on the anal, dorsal, and ab 

 dominal regions indiscriminately. 

 Parasitic fungi are met with in 

 Australia and other countries which 



attack living and dead larvae, pu- 

 pae, etc., consisting of upward of 

 twenty-five recorded species, but 

 none are so conspicuous or so re- 

 markable, that I am aware of, as 

 Sphaeria (formerly Torrubia) Rob- 

 ertsii, examples of which may be 

 seen in many museums. Finally, I 

 observe that "Aweto" is the Maori 

 appellation for the larva of the 

 New Zealand convolvulus hawk 

 moth, Sphinax convolvuli, frequent- 

 ly seen feeding on the kumara or 

 sweet potato, Convolvuls chrysorrhi- 

 us. — George J. Grapes, Caebroi 

 Paraparaumu, North Island, New 

 Zealand, in Scientific American. 



Destruction of Forests in Cali- 

 fornia. 



still has twenty millions of magni- 

 ficent forest land, but the truth is 

 that there is left hardly fifteen mil 

 lion acres, and much of this has 

 been cut away. — Scientific Ameri- 

 can. 



The Water Trees of Australia. 



In the University of California 

 Magazine Mr. Charles H. Shinn, 

 in writing of the lavish way in 

 which the best parts of the Cali- 

 fornia forests have been cleared 

 away, states that in the Comstock 

 mines alone enough timber has 

 been used to build all the houses 

 needed for a city of 50,000 inhabi- 

 tants. He has seen the bottom of 

 a canon crowded for miles with the 

 trunks of pines from each one of 

 which a few flume blocks or a log 

 of butt timber had been cut, while 

 the rest was left to decay. Not to 

 mention the thousands of acres of 

 the most magnificent coniferous 

 timber known to man destroyed by 

 fires which have burned out the 

 soil itself into great pits, it is 

 stated that the waste of timber in 

 the redwood districts has been even 

 more appalling than it has been in 

 the Sierras. More than once the 

 world's record for the number of 

 feet cut in a day has been broken 

 by some one of the sawmills of the 

 coast redwoods. So much lumber 

 is still produced by rival mill men 

 that it has not paid for cutting, and 

 some of the large California firms 

 of lumbermen have become bank- 

 rupt. Enormous trees that repre- 

 sent from 800 to 1,000 years of 

 symmetrical growth have been 

 sawed up with no profit, or with 

 actual loss, when, if they had been 

 left to stand a few decades longer, 

 the profit might have been a thous- 

 and dollars an acre. 



At the time of the American oc- 

 cupation of California the forests 

 covered, perhaps, 50,000 square 

 miles. Half of this has been cut 

 over or is inaccessible or consists 

 of species of less value than those 

 which have heretofore been cut. It 

 is often asserted that California 



Those who go out to grapple 

 with the dangers, the hardships, 

 and the mysteries of the Australian 

 desert regions should, above all 

 things, instruct themselves in bush 

 lore. It has happened more than 

 once that in these dread torrid 

 wastes the body has been found, 

 lying beneath a tree, of some poor 

 wanderer who had died from the 

 lack of water, even while there was 

 within a few inches of him a plen- 

 tiful supply. 



In all the unwatered regions of 

 Australia are to be found "water 

 trees" trees which actually provide 

 a supply of water to those who 

 know where and how to look for it 

 The most reliable of the water 

 trees are the water mallars, or 

 group of trees, including the Eu- 

 calyptus microtheca, which form a 

 part of the terrible mailer scrub. 

 Outside of these, the currajong,the 

 desert oak, the bloodwood, and 

 several varieties of the acacia are 

 water bearing trees. 



I shall not soon forget my first 

 introduction to a water tree. I was 

 in the northern territory of South 

 Australia, and I was making my 

 first journey through the desert in 

 company with a friend who was a 

 well-informed bushman. It was 

 toward the end of the day, and as 

 he had been detained for several 

 hours owing to an accident, we 

 had still fifteen miles to travel. 

 The water bag had been drained 

 hours before, and in that dreadful 

 desert our sufferings had already 

 become intolerable. Suddenly my' 

 friend plunged his spurs into his 

 weary horse and dashed at full gal- 

 lop toward a tree some fifty yards 

 off shouting to me to follow. Fling- 

 ing himself from his saddle, he 

 clawed with his fingers the sand at 

 the base of the tree, and presently 

 laid bare one of its spreading roots. 

 This was torn from the earth to 

 the length of about six feet, and 

 breaking off a piece about a foot 

 and a half long, my companion 

 signing me to follow his example, 

 applied one end of the piece of 

 root to his parched lips and elevat- 

 ed the other end. I followed suit, 

 and to my indescribable joy a cool 

 refreshing draught of water reward- 

 ed me. The one root amply suf- 



