World-Travelling

Wasps

CONSIGNMENTS of black wasps from Zanzibar now are reported to be arriving regularly in Samoa in an effort to combat a coconut parasite, the Rninoceros beetle. Efforts to send the wasps via England, America and Fiji did not prove successful, but the consign ments now going forward via Cairo, India

and Australia are arriving in good con dition. They are transported from New Zealand onwards by RNZAF Dakota air craft.

The pupa or chrysalis is being collected in Zanzibar by Mr. H. W. Simmonds, former Government entomologist in Fiji.

Three consignments were sent via London and America, but out of hundreds of insects despatched very few reached Samoa alive. They were packed in tins containing food, which is largely honey.

These had to be constructed in such a way that air could enter, but not mos quitoes. They were sent via Cairo to London, where the Entomological Insti tute of the Natural History Museum, at the request of the NZ Government, re conditioned the tins, which were then flown across the Atlantic to America, and then to Samoa via Hawaii.

Mrs. Eva Standen, who was evacuated from Papua to Australia in 1941, is about to return to her “Mission in the Mud” —in other words, her missionary work among the natives of the Bamu River delta, in Western Papua. She will be entertained and farewelled by Sydney friends at a function in Sydney in the evening of November 15.

Wasps from Zanzibar, brought in to attack the Rhinoceros Beetle, are examined with great interest at Apia airfield by Air Transport and Administration officials. The story of this interesting entomological experiment was told in the October “PIM.” —Photo by White’s Aviation, Ltd.