Show CURIOSITY OF INSECT LIFE caterpillar found in new zealand i said to china change from animal to vegetable in looking through come old boxes of m mine in e a day or two ago I 1 came across among other things some beget vegetable able caterpillars and thought that you might be interested in baa having in some of them as curios As far as I 1 know there is no other place in the world where these can be got and only one or two places in new zealand one of which i is mam malaku mamaku Ma k u the natives theory isthan is that the cater ater c pillar lives on the rala tree eata the seed of this and dies from the tSe effect falling off of the tree to the ground where the s seed germa germinates nates and while gennina germinating ting changes the caterpillar from animal to vegetable this theory has a good many points in its favor whether correct or otherwise there is a big caterpillar found on the rata tree these vegetable caterpillars are never found under any other tree than the tata rata the rata starts as a small vine which climbs up some other tree in tho the bush usually one of the pine species and eventually kills it so that the little sprout from the head of a caterpillar might easily be the start of a rata tree although 0 I 1 have never got the caterpillar with a sprout on it more than a foot long iong P K X 11 mcdonald cDonald in adventure lif magazine agazine |