Then there is the Cricket (_Cicada_), which swarms on the clearings, eating down the grass, and doing damage in the gardens and fields. It is the chief enemy of farmers. We have to keep large flocks of turkeys on the clearings to keep down the crickets. They devour the insect greedily, getting to a marvellous size on the food, and acquiring a delicacy and flavour far beyond that of stubble-fed birds. A plague of caterpillars also appears sometimes, which must be combated by similar means.
We have flies in hosts, innumerable spiders, some of them as big as walnuts, with hairy legs like a crab's claws, huge flying locust-grasshoppers, goat-chafers, cock-chafers, dragon-flies, beetles, and butterflies, the last not often remarkable for size or brilliance. There are two unique creatures that must have special reference made to them.
The Hotete is the so-called "vegetating caterpillar." It is a grub two or three inches long, and out of its head there grows a parasitic fungus (_Sphaeria Robertsii_), in the form of a long spire or blade, six or seven inches in length, with a seed-spur on the top. The natives eat the hotete. It is the larva of _Hepialus virescens_, a kind of locust.
The Weta (_Deinacrida heteracantha_) is a creature of the locust form living in dead-wood. Its body may reach to three inches in length, and be about the thickness of one's thumb. It is covered with horny scales, resembling those of a shrimp, but of a darker brown colour. The head is perfectly black, and resembles a small lobster, with the claws and mandibles projecting downwards. There are two large staring eyes, and two immense antennæ. It has six legs, the latter pair being very strong and large, while all are armed with serrated edges or files, and with hooked claws. Behind, there is a horny, wedge-like spine. From the hinder claws to the tip of the antennæ the weta may measure sixteen inches, if a full-grown specimen. It bores its way through dead-wood, in which it lives. Sometimes you get a weta on your clothes, and feel horrified; but it is perfectly harmless, though you will have to take it in pieces to get it off you. The larva of this reptile, a huge sickly-white maggot, is a great prize to a Maori. He fixes it on a stick, toasts it at the fire, and eats it with every sign and expression of extravagant delight. I must say that the odour of the toasted grub is very appetizing, still, I never could bring myself to try one.